Send to Sleep
by Mertiya
Summary: Jace Beleren doesn't know what to expect from his first year of Hogwarts. He's spent his life bounced from foster home to foster home. All he wants is a place to belong and maybe a way to handle the voices in his head. What he gets are two friends: a girl haunted by nightmares and a muggleborn boy who is absolutely frustrated at the lack of internet in the wizarding world.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

In the early morning light, smoke was rising from the hill above the village. For several years, the villagers had wondered about the new goings-on in the neighboring mansion. Several times a flustered Ministry wizard had shown up to check on the purchasing agreement, trying much too hard to be incognito. Still, it wasn't as if much ever happened. At least, not until the mansion was gone.

It wasn't even really the most noteworthy thing about the day. There was, as characterized many of the days of the Wizarding War, a string of tragedies—accidents, murders, probably at least one mob killing of a suspected Death-Eater. Or the other way around, as the days lengthened, the war got worse, and it seemed as any day might be the final triumph of the Dark Lord. But that day, the mansion on the top of the hill burned down.

It must have been attacked in the night, silently and without much fuss, perhaps with protective spells up to keep anyone from noticing. By the time any of the villagers realized what had happened, it was morning, and nothing remained but a pile of smoking rubble. Most people were inclined to sigh and shrug it off, but a young woman whom the villagers much later discovered had been Hermione Granger, stopping by the little village to purchase supplies, pointed out that it would only make things more difficult for investigators later on, so at some time after nine in the morning, a little procession from the village wound its way up the hill. There wasn't much left, just a collapsed muddle of smoking timbers and charred foundation stones, but the villagers began to sort through it anyway

It was Hermione who found the boy.

She had been following a faint, wispy thread of enchantment that didn't seem to have wholly dissipated, when she came around the corner of one of the larger pieces of wall that had survived, and saw him. He was very small, perhaps four or five years old, hunched over in the lee of the stone with his chin tucked on top of his knees. Who was he, she wondered—there had been no suggestion of a family living here as far as she knew.

Before she could speculate any further, the child spoke. "I don't know," he said, his voice ragged and close to tears.

"What?" Hermione asked, moving slowly closer to him, her hand held out as if he was a dog she was trying not to scare.

"I don't know who I am," the little boy said, which confused her, because she hadn't asked—"Yes, you did," he protested. "You just did." Then he pressed his hands over his ears, tears welling up in his eyes. "Why is it so _loud_?" he sobbed.


	2. Rites of Initiation

**Chapter One: Rites of Initiation**

Harry squinted at the entrance to the testing center, which was oddly dim and hard to see, a lopsided white rectangle set into the side of a squat, unfriendly-looking cinder-block of a building. Grasping his wand in his hand for comfort, he started forward.

At the desk inside, there was a quill and an inkwell, beside a thick testing booklet. Grimly, as the proctor announced the beginning of the examination period, he broke the red Ministry of Magic seal and opened the book. The words swam alarmingly before his eyes, and again he squinted, trying to force his eyes to focus. Was something wrong with his glasses?

" _Oculus reparo,_ " he muttered, touching the front of his glasses with his wand, the end of which glowed brilliantly white above the mottled indentations in its length. Harry frowned. Something about his wand seemed wrong, but he couldn't tell what it was. He forced his concentration back down to the test booklet.

He needed to solve at least this first problem if he wanted a shot at becoming an Auror, but no matter how he tried, he couldn't figure out the correct broomstick length to use to solve the arithmancy problem. And despite the light of his wand, it was growing even darker, so dark that he couldn't even make out the words he was supposed to be reading.

"Not done yet, Potter?" Malfoy's mocking voice said from the gloom, and he started upright, wand at the ready. Floating in the air beyond the desk was a mask beneath a mop of yellow hair and nothing else. "Figures you'd be the last one."

Harry looked around. The room was silent and empty; even the proctor's chair was bare of its occupant. Where had they all gone? He backed away from the desk, and the light from his wand turned sickly-green. The mask laughed in Malfoy's voice, the lower jaw unhinging to let the snake inside slither out. Bright eyes flashed, and the snake's voiced hissed in parseltongue, " _Avada_ —"

Green light flared as Harry cried out, and a shrill ringing blotted out the rest of the words, a ringing that only slowly resolved into the sound of the ancient phone by his bed.

When he realized what it was, he sat up with a gasp. Trembling violently, he almost dropped the receiver when he went to pick it up, but he managed to seize control of it before it slipped through his fingers. "H-Hello?" he said, his voice shaking more than he'd have liked.

"Harry, thank goodness!" Hermione's voice was tinny and distorted. "I _wish_ you'd get on the floo network."

"I like my privacy," Harry mumbled. He'd had this argument with Hermione more than enough times, but it seemed that her statement had just been a throwaway, routine complaint, because she continued almost immediately.

"We need your help at Hogwarts," she said, and he felt an icy jab in the pit of his stomach.

"What's happened?" Even six years after the Battle of Hogwarts, not all the Death-Eaters had been apprehended. Could they have attacked the school? Or Malfoy—he'd been helping Hermione teach there. Had he _done_ something?

"It's not a matter of life-or-death," Hermione said quickly. "Not literally, I mean. But we really do need your help."

"Then what _is_ it?" Harry glanced over at his bedside table, where his clock told him that it was 6 am and all his friends were safe. Not quite obscenely early, but close.

"Professor Slughorn has just owled to let us know that he's having visa problems in China," Hermione said, a string of words which made almost no sense to Harry.

"Er, okay," he said. "So…you…need me to fly to China and get him?"

"Harry, honestly," Hermione said reprovingly. "No, we need you to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts for at least the first few weeks of term."

"What? I can't!"

"I'm sure you can."

"No, Hermione, I really can't. I'm an Auror—I mean, I could take time off if I had to, but I don't really want—I mean—" He paused, aware that he was breathing heavily. _I don't want to go back to Hogwarts._ He'd been avoiding it for awhile now, and he hadn't really—noticed, until now. He wasn't even certain why, except that he didn't want to go backwards. Somehow, it was very important that he not go backwards.

She must have heard something final in his voice, because hers was getting more rapid as she spoke, the words tripping over one another. "Harry, please, you're the only person who can do this, we haven't been able to find a replacement teacher in six years because no one will take the job, and Draco and I have literally been teaching it in shifts for the last three."

Despite the distortion of the telephone, her voice sounded near tears, and Harry felt abruptly guilty. He knew Hermione had been teaching at Hogwarts essentially since right after the Battle. That she had gotten a BA while still managing to teach, because the number of available teachers was horribly depleted in the aftermath of the war.. And, while of course he had spent time with her and Ron over the holidays, he'd always made excuses to avoid setting foot back on the Hogwarts grounds. Even though Neville and Luna had been back in short shifts to help out with the teacher shortage—even Malfoy had been back before he had.

"I don't know how to teach, though, won't I be worse than nothing?" he said eventually. "Couldn't you just—cancel DADA for a few weeks?"

"Professor Slughorn left all his notes," Hermione said, sniffing slightly. "And I don't think canceling the class is really—viable. We have students taking O.W.L.s and N.E. this term, and you know it's one of the most important subjects."

Harry sighed. "Are you sure you can't do this without me?"

"I don't know who else to call," Hermione said miserably. "There just— _isn't_ anyone. Draco's got to take over Potions _and_ the headship of Slytherin and people aren't going to like that at all, but it was better than me doing it."

That was the second time she'd said 'Draco' instead of 'Malfoy.' Had she done it before? Harry tried to remember, but if they'd discussed Malfoy since he'd defended him at his trial, he couldn't remember it. He sighed again. "All right, then," he said defeatedly. "I'll see what I can do."

"Oh, thank you!" Hermione exclaimed, and the relief in her voice was almost enough to calm the numerous doubts buzzing around his head. Almost.

* * *

Jace Beleren wrestled with his trunk. It was bigger than any luggage he'd ever owned before, and he suspected he had put too many books into it. But he'd never been going to be living in a place of his own for most of the year before, and he'd always had to travel light. The thought of having a bed—and maybe even a bookshelf—of his very own had meant that he'd probably overdone it at the bookstore when he was purchasing textbooks. Which meant he was a little low on spending money for the train, as well, but he'd rather have books than food. Barely. In the meantime, though, he needed to get his trunk over his seat, and he couldn't lift it.

"Do you need help?" Jace nearly jumped out of his skin. Despite the fact that he hadn't taken his cloak off in months, and he'd had it for several years now, he still got nervy when someone came up behind him without announcing themselves. He yelped as he lost his grip on the heavy trunk and it started to tip over onto his head.

Two separate pairs of hands steadied it. "I'm sorry," said the same person. Her voice had a pronounced Scots lilt. "I didn't mean to scare you." He looked up to see a tall girl with long hair tied in a fat plait holding most of the weight of the trunk.

"Why not levitate it?" said a new voice. The other pair of hands belonged to a skinny, black-haired boy with a thin streak of white in his hair. His dark eyes were sparkling. Jace liked both of them on sight.

"We aren't supposed to do magic yet, I don't think," the girl said doubtfully.

"Boring," replied the boy. "All right, fine." He heaved, and the trunked shifted, wobbling warningly.

"Let me do it," the girl said. "You're going to drop it."

"I am not!" the boy responded irritably, but she merely shoved the trunk up another few inches, lifting it right out of his hands.

"And you're short," she pointed out with a smile. The boy glared at her, made a humphing noise, and threw himself down in the seat across from her. Glancing back to Jace as she finished shoving his trunk into position, the girl said, "I'm Elspeth Tirel. Are you both new as well?"

Jace nodded, but couldn't quite make any words come out. This turned out not to be a problem, because their other companion started talking a mile a minute almost immediately. "I'm Ral Zarek. Neither of my parents are wizards. I came in third at the science fair last year, but I bet if I could do a project on magic, they'd have to give me first. If I could make them believe it, I guess," he ended, a little sadly.

Elspeth looked at him curiously. "What's a science fair?" she asked.

Both of Ral's dark, expressive eyebrows leapt into his hair. "It's a contest," he explained. "You—see who does the best science. Whoever does, wins a prize. You know, you're supposed to try and do an experiment or something with computers or something?"

Elspeth and Jace looked at one another uncertainly. "What's a computer?" Elspeth asked.

Ral flung himself dramatically back into his seat. "Oh my _god_ ," he said. He took a deep breath, apparently preparing to launch into a long rant, but before he could say anything, a horrible shriek cut through every fiber of Jace's being.

He was on the floor and under the seat before he had a chance to think, hands over his ears, heart pounding, something in his mind screaming, _They've found me,_ over and over again. The train corridor crumbled away as if it had never been, and in its place was charred stones and blackened rubble and the darkness of an empty night sky above him.

There were hands on his shoulders, and the sensation of touch yanked him back to the present. His heart was thunderously loud in his ears, and he was whimpering. "Are you okay? It was just a train whistle."

And after Ral's voice, Elspeth's. "I think—he had a flashback."

"A flashback?"

Elspeth's voice, low, pausing and catching for a moment as she struggled to find a way to explain. Because, Jace realized, Ral's parents were Muggles. He probably didn't know about the war. He came from a world of science and computers—two things Jace was suddenly, fiercely interested in. What was that world like? It had to be different from the world he'd lived in his whole life, and that could only be a good thing, he considered bleakly.

"Sorry," he whispered, and Elspeth and Ral stopped talking. They were both crouched in front of him, hands on his shoulders.

"You don't have to apologize," Elspeth said. "Sometimes that—happens to me, too."

Ral's eyes were round. "That _sucks_ ," he said angrily. "You guys are eleven. What the fuck?"

"Ral!" Elspeth said, in such a shocked voice that Jace had to giggle.

"I think I'm okay," he said, a little doubtfully. Shakily, he started to crawl out from under the seat. "I'm Jace Beleren, by the way. Sorry I didn't introduce myself earlier."

"No problem," Ral said airily. "Maybe you should sit on the seat instead of the floor, though. I bet it's more comfortable."

"Yeah." Jace managed a smile at both of them. Elspeth had one hand underneath his elbow, and Ral's hand was still on his shoulder, although Ral looked hurriedly away as Jace glanced at him.

"C'mon then," he said. "Who wants snacks?"

Ral and Elspeth turned out to have quite a lot of spending money and be completely willing to share their snacks with Jace, who fell asleep on Ral's shoulder after stuffing himself with chocolate frogs. He woke up with a jolt when the train whistled again to find that Elspeth was also asleep on Ral's other shoulder, and Ral was staring determinedly at a small, red rectangle with a bunch of buttons on the front.

"What are you doing?" Jace asked, yawning sleepily, and it was only when Ral's shoulders hunched slightly that he realized it was probably a little rude to fall asleep on top of someone you'd only just met. "Um, sorry," he said, sitting up hastily.

"I don't care," Ral said, rather loudly. "I'm just playing on my Game Boy. It's been freezing a lot, though, so I think we're getting close to Hogwarts. Most things I've read say technology and magic don't really get along—which, by the way, doesn't make any sense. I mean, it's not like I'm trying to access the internet or anything…"

"What?" said Jace, and Ral sighed.

"Here," he said, exasperatedly. "I'll show you."

* * *

They spent the last few hours of the train ride with Ral swearing and wrestling with his device. In the brief periods during which his friend could get the thing to work, Jace was fascinated. "So it doesn't normally shut down every few minutes?" he asked, as the train rumbled to a stop at the Hogsmeade Station, and Ral irritably shoved the Game Boy into his bags.

"No, normally you can actually get _through_ a Pokemon battle," Ral said. "Fuck! I can't _believe_ I lost a shiny castform. This sucks."

Jace winced slightly at the obscenity again. "You probably shouldn't swear in front of the teachers," he said.

"Oh, yeah, good call," Ral answered with a grin. "I don't need to be in detention _all_ the time this year."

Elspeth woke up as the train ground to a halt, and the three of them got out, stretching stiffly, and looked around.

"Firs'-years over here!" shouted someone, and Jace jerked at the loud noise and stepped behind Ral.

"I guess that's us," Ral said. "D'you need me to help you with your trunk?"

"Um." Jace looked down at it doubtfully. "I don't think you could manage it either."

"I expect we could ask _him_ ," Elspeth nodded toward the man who had shouted. "He looks big enough to pick it up."

Sure enough, the giant, loud-voiced man was on his way over. "Did yeh pack too heavy?" he asked, and Jace, sinking back behind Ral and Elspeth again, managed a nod. "Don' worry about it," the huge man said. "Most of yehr stuff won' fit in the boats anyway. Jus' follow me."

The three of them trailed uncertainly after him, Jace not without a longing look back at his books. He was already exhausted and wanted to curl up in bed with a good book—maybe near Ral. Maybe they would be Sorted into the same house. They could try to figure out how to make the Game Boy work together. Maybe they'd become best friends. Maybe—maybe Ral could Jace home for some of the holidays. Jace shook his head. Better not to hope for it, in case he was disappointed. It was too early to know if Ral would want to spend time around him.

They met the rest of the first-years at a dock, where the man, who in the meantime had introduced himself as Rubeus Hagrid, shooed them all into a fleet of small boats. "This is so overcomplicated," Ral complained. "Besides, what if I get my Game Boy wet?"

"Look how beautiful the lights are, though," Elspeth said, pointing. Across the water, the lights of the castle cast a flickering golden glow on their surroundings. Even from here, it looked warm and welcoming.

"I guess so," Ral agreed doubtfully, slumping down into the bottom of the boat. "I really wish they'd decided to do the grand arrival on a day we weren't all exhausted from traveling, though."

A cold wind sprang up as they reached the halfway point of the lake. Jace shivered, scrunching himself lower down in his blue cloak.

"Do you wear that all the time?" Ral asked curiously. Face burning, Jace nodded. "Huh," Ral said. "It's cool. I like it."

"It would look silly on someone else, but it suits you very well," Elspeth put in.

Jace hid his face. "Th-Thanks," he managed.

The rest of the boat ride was uneventful. They docked after a short time, and Hagrid helped them out of the boat. Elspeth hopped easily onto land, but Jace was still stiff and sore from traveling and needed a hand.

They were led up into a great, wide hallway lined with bright candles. There were luxurious rugs on the floor and bright paintings on the walls, but Jace could see the faint marks of dark magic on the stones, and he shivered. He wished it wasn't so easy for him to recognize.

" _Candles_?" Ral said in a scandalized tone of voice. "Oh, god, surely electricity works. It must." He grabbed Elspeth by the arm and shook her. "You've seen electric lights, right? They exist here?"

"Er," said Elspeth, her face going pink. "I've seen them when we traveled through Muggle areas."

"Oh _god_ ," moaned Ral. "I am living in the Dark Ages!"

"What's wrong with candles?" Elspeth asked.

Ral opened his mouth, apparently to detail everything that was wrong with candles, but before he could speak, one of the prefects who was helping to direct them came over. "You," she said, pointing to Jace, who automatically took a step back and tried to make himself look smaller. "You need to take off the cloak. It's not part of the uniform."

Jace swallowed. _I can't_ , he wanted to say, but his voice, never very loud at the best of times, had deserted him.

"You can keep it in your dorm, you just can't wear it around," the girl continued. Jace's ears burned, and again, he tried to speak, but nothing came out. Instead, he stared at the floor, trying not to cry, and wondering if they would throw him out.

"If he wants to wear it, then let him," Ral said suddenly, stepping forward in front of Jace. "He—He has flashbacks."

The girl tapped her foot. "I don't make the rules," she said. Jace was sniffing now, feeling the tears well up. He swiped at them in frustration, and Elspeth's hand was on his back, rubbing light circles across it.

 _Please_ , he wanted to say, but the only way she would hear him say it was if he took off the cloak and he couldn't face that.

"Kiora!" said a new voice. A breathless-looking woman with frizzy hair escaping from a tight bun hurried across the room toward them. "Didn't you read the message I sent to the prefects?" She turned to Jace, and he recognized her abruptly. He had never seen her with her hair up or wearing formal robes, but Ms. Granger had visited him several times in the last few years.

"I was running a little late," Kiora said. "Sorry, what did I miss?"

"Jace needs to wear the cloak," Ms. Granger said. "It's a matter of some importance. He has an exemption from the normal dress code." She looked up quickly. "Are you all right, Jace?" she asked.

Face burning from embarrassment now, Jace nodded. "I'm fine," he muttered at his feet, wishing he'd been able to explain it himself.

"I'm glad," Ms. Granger said, her face crinkling in a sudden smile, and then she straightened up. "All right, we'd better get them in to be Sorted. Are you ready?"

Jace was the second one called up to the Hat, and he tried not to show how nervous he was feeling. He had some notion of how the Sorting went—you did hear things—but he was curious and nervous. Ravenclaw, he thought, might be the likeliest, but he wasn't certain. He'd read about a lot of people being surprised by the house they were sorted into, and, to be honest, he wasn't certainly he really _believed_ in the hat, the way so many people seemed to. It seemed like a self-fulfilling prophecy—if you thought you would be sorted into a particular house, you probably had some preconception of your best qualities anyway. And besides, Jace thought fiercely, people could change. They weren't inexorably drawn to some inevitable destiny. Whatever qualities they had, they could choose how to use them.

"Lad, you're going to have to take off the cloak," the Sorting Hat murmured in his ear, and Jace blanched, searching for Professor Granger's face in the crowd, then shut his eyes, stomach rolling sickly inside. Looking at all of the people who were looking at him had been a mistake.

"I c-can't," he stammered. "I'll be able to—hear—"

"I can't sort you otherwise," the Hat said, and, once again, Jace's stomach sank into his boots. Why hadn't Professor Granger warned him? Had she not known? Or had she just forgotten? That the Hat must sort through Legilimency.

Well, it wasn't going to take his cloak away, the way the prefect had been. It just wanted it off for a minute. Surely he could deal with it for a minute. Jace's mouth was dry, and his hands were shaking, but he reached up to undo the clasp of his cloak. The Hat seemed to hold itself up for him as he pulled the cloak down off his shoulders and into his lap and braced himself.

 _Thank you_ , the Hat said in his mind, and Jace flinched. The sudden influx of voices wasn't as loud as he had expected, but it was still disorienting. _Ah_ , the Hat said breezily. _Sorry about that. I'll just be a minute._ A headache already pounding behind his temples, Jace nodded. _So,_ the Hat murmured. _You don't believe in me_. It chuckled, and Jace stiffened defensively. _No need to worry, lad,_ the Hat continued. _Not everyone does_. _Not even I always believe in me_.

It hadn't meant to say that last, Jace realized suddenly. Through the buzz and cacophony of voices rising in his head, it was easy to focus on the Hat's voice, because the channel it had opened wasn't just one-way, and he followed it backwards into a maze of conflicting thoughts and algorithms, as if he were falling through a long, dark well.

The Hat was old, and it had so many memories that it was impossible to see all of them, and all he got were strange, sharp slivers and fragments. There were faces, hundreds and thousands of faces, most of them children like Jace, but the ones that stood out weren't so young anymore. There was a craggy, smiling old man with strikingly dark hair, a thin woman with hair down to her ankles, and then—the briefest flash of a bloody, desperate boy's face that Jace only recognized from the lightning scar on his forehead, staring down into himself—into the Hat.

It wasn't just memories. There were other kinds of thoughts—thoughts that Jace couldn't quite grasp the shape of. Thoughts of _algorithms_ and _heuristics_ and _balance_ —another memory, recent: Professor Granger stooping close and talking rapidly in a worried voice about unevenness, but before Jace could search any farther, the Hat spoke again.

 _You're too curious for Ravenclaw,_ it muttered. _And I need you out of_ my _head. You want a family, don't you? Better be…_

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

It took Jace a moment to realize that he'd been Sorted, but as soon as he did, he grabbed his cloak and threw it about his shoulders. Silence descended like a cloak, and he slumped forward, taking the Hat off his head with shaking hands and listening to a sudden burst of cheers, applause, and whistles.

At the Hufflepuff table, hands reached out from all sides to pat him on the back, and he couldn't help smiling, even though he hunched forward over his place in nervousness and couldn't manage to look up. Someone shoved a glass of pumpkin juice at him, and he sipped at it gratefully, not feeling up to trying to eat just yet. At least the dinner smelled appetizing. He'd definitely had worse experiences when he had to take off the cloak before.

But what had the Hat meant when it said Ravenclaw would destroy him, or he'd destroy them? Jace shook his head, trying to dislodge the cold trickle of apprehension running down his spine. The Hat could read minds—could it see into the part of his mind that Jace couldn't? Did it know something he didn't? He firmly shoved the thought down and tried to pay attention to the rest of the Sorting.

It wasn't all that interesting, really. Just staring at the Hat sitting on someone's head until it shouted a house name. Jace sat back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling, counting numbers of candles. He paid attention again when they got to Elspeth, and the Hat only took a few seconds before Sorting her into Hufflepuff as well. She smiled brightly at him and slid into the seat next to him. Jace heaved a grateful sigh. Now if only Ral would get Sorted into Hufflepuff as well—that was really unlikely, though. Somehow, Jace thought he'd be in Ravenclaw or maybe Gryffindor.

"I'm glad I know somebody here already," Elspeth said frankly to Jace as they watched the Sorting continue. "I'm the oldest one in my family, so I don't have any siblings here, and I was afraid I was going to be lonely."

"Are Houses really that important?" Jace murmured sadly. "I mean, can't you spend time with somebody outside of yours?"

"Oh, probably," Elspeth said comfortably. "But it's nice to know someone in your house as well. Don't worry, I bet we'll see Ral a lot. Do you think he'll be in Ravenclaw?"

"Mmm," Jace murmured, frowning. He had a growing sense that something was—not quite right about the Sorting up till now. He hadn't been paying very much attention, but—he looked around the room at the four tables. A steady trickle of people had been heading to three of them, but—

"Ral Zarek!" called the headmistress. He was the last one. Jace watched, holding his breath, _willing_ , even though he knew there was absolutely no way Ral was going to be Sorted into Hufflepuff, as Ral walked slowly up to the space in the middle. He didn't look scared—even just knowing him for a few hours, Jace got the sense that Ral never _looked_ scared—but he was a little bit slow and deliberate about sitting down and putting the Hat on.

It took longer than Elspeth's Sorting had; Jace wasn't sure if took longer than his own. He found himself clutching for Elspeth's hand under the table, and she took his hand and squeezed it comfortingly, even as he leaned forward. If he took off his cloak, would he know what was going on over there? Better not. Professor Granger might notice, and the half-quiescent headache would probably flare up again, anyway.

"SLYTHERIN!" Jace jerked so hard he banged both knees into the table. The hall was strangely quiet as Ral lifted the Hat off his head, and that was when Jace realized what he'd felt was wrong. No one had been Sorted into Slytherin until now. Every single other person had ended up in one of the other Houses. Well, maybe that wasn't so surprising. Who would _want_ to be in Slytherin? Other than…a Muggle-born who didn't know anything about the house's reputation. Jace shook himself sternly, forcing down the sudden surge of panic and dread. He knew Ral. No matter what the reputation of Slytherin House was, this was just more proof that the Sorting Hat didn't always know what it was doing. Besides, houses didn't matter that much. He wasn't going to _let_ the houses matter that much, because Ral Zarek was his friend already, and Jace would walk through fire for him if he had to. He didn't have so many friends he could afford to let one of them go just because he was Sorted into a House that people didn't like.

No one was applauding, Jace realized suddenly. He'd been so distracted by his own thoughts that he hadn't noticed the odd silence in the Great Hall, as Ral slipped down from the seat and left the Hat on the chair. He stood, a single, lonely figure, in the middle, in silence. Jace looked sideways at Elspeth and saw that her forehead had drawn together into an angry frown. Her hand slipped out of his as she stood up and began to clap firmly and loudly. The noise sounded odd all by itself, and Jace was just a moment behind in getting to his feet and clapping as well. At the Slytherin table, the blond professor who was probably their head of house got to his feet as well.

Slowly, the wave of clapping spread as Ral walked nonchalantly over to the Slytherin table and slipped into one of the many empty spots. "Jerks," Elspeth muttered fiercely as she and Jace sat back down, and the hallway slowly started to fill with the sound of noise and laughter again.

* * *

It felt strange to be back at Hogwarts. Harry had apparated to Hogsmeade as soon as he was able to sort out a leave of absence from his work, but he was still late—the station was silent, cold, and empty. Instead of flying or getting a carriage, he decided to walk from the station to Hogwarts. He wasn't sure why—a feeling in his chest was tugging him on, while another feeling in his feet was trying to slow him down, and the walk seemed like the best compromise.

Everything was familiar, but oddly faded, like the pages of a childhood book that he had opened after years of not touching it. The path was the same as ever; he knew what was going to be around each bend before he saw it. Only Hogwarts itself was somehow different. He couldn't quite place his finger on, but his chest twisted oddly as he rounded the bend and stared up at the castle. All the lights were gleaming, bright and welcoming—but, Harry felt, not for him. Not anymore.

Gloomily, he stalked up the drive, his robes swishing in a satisfyingly dramatic way around him. Hermione was probably wondering where he was by now. He was definitely bloody late. Shouldn't have walked. That had been pretty damn selfish, hadn't it? "Fuck," Harry muttered to himself, running a hand through his hair. He couldn't just stand here berating himself in the drive, he needed to go up to the castle itself.

He didn't want to. He still didn't want to. He'd gotten this damn close, and he did not want to take one step farther. _Don't be an idiot_ , he berated himself, and finally started trudging back up the drive.

There was a figure standing in the entryway, probably waiting for him. The door behind them was ajar, and whoever they were, they were too backlist for Harry to make out. It didn't look like Hermione, but who else would—

"Potter, is that you?"

Harry instinctively took a step back. Of course, he'd known that Malfoy was teaching at Hogwarts. After all, Hermione had mentioned him by name during their telephone conversation, even if he hadn't already been following the developments quite closely—developments at Hogwarts, of course. He wouldn't bother paying attention to what happened to Malfoy after the family's trial. He'd done his bit for them—more than his bit, really.

He searched for words, and "What are you doing here?" came out. Not quite what he'd meant to say. Bit too rude, really.

"Waiting for you," drawled Malfoy. "Herm—Granger is trying to get the first-years settled, and she asked me to keep an eye out. I was expecting you to come by broom, not foot."

"I fancied a walk," Harry said awkwardly. "Sorry I'm late."

"You arrived before classes start, that's good enough," Malfoy said, rubbing a hand across his face. As he moved into the light, Harry was suddenly, forcibly struck with how tired he looked. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his hair—usually so perfectly kempt—flopped limply over his forehead. A vague trace of stubble showed on his chin. He glanced irritably backward. "Mind you, I'd rather not just stand outside here all night," he continued.

"Right, sorry," Harry said hastily. "My luggage won't be here yet, I'm having it sent. Couldn't figure out what I was going to need."

Malfoy's eyebrow went up. "We've got some lesson outlines for you," he shrugged. "Robes and any books or things you want, I suppose. Come on."

"Where am I sleeping?" Harry asked, and Malfoy's eyes flicked to him and back down to the ground.

"Er, Professor Lupin's old room," he said quietly. "It's a bedroom and a study. No kitchen or anything, but we can figure something out if you don't want house elf cooking."

"Oh, er, thanks," Harry replied.

"I'll take you there," Malfoy said. "C'mon."

They walked in silence until they passed the doors of the Great Hall. "Oh, Granger asked me to ask you something else," Malfoy said, halting. He pushed the door open. "Sorry, dinner's almost over," he said. "But—see that kid?" He gestured over to the Hufflepuff table, where a small figure sat, wrapped in a blue cloak, between two children Harry did not recognize.

"Why's he wearing that?" Harry asked.

"It has a powerful occlumency charm on it," Malfoy answered. "That's the boy they found in the old Ministry mansion during the war. Did you hear about him?"

Harry shrugged. "I think I might've been a bit occupied at the time."

"He's a ridiculously powerful legilimens," Malfoy said coolly. "He has to wear that or he can't turn it off."

Harry blinked. "He's what?" he said. "Legilimency is something you learn, you can't just be— _born_ with it, can you?"

"I don't know. Apparently, you can. Or at least—" Malfoy halted suddenly. "It's not important. Anyway, Granger wanted to know if you'd take a shot at mentoring him and looking out for him."

"Huh?"

"He's an orphan," Malfoy said. "Orphaned during the war, no idea who his family is, he's spent the last six years of his life being passed from household to household because no one had any idea what to do with him."

Harry's stomach turned over uncomfortably. "Why didn't anyone adopt him?" he asked.

"The Ministry kept blocking it," Malfoy said darkly. "At least, Hermione and I think that's why—she's met him a few times, kept tabs on him. I think she did try to adopt him once, but they said she was too young, wouldn't let her. It would have been a bloody awful idea, anyway. She wouldn't have had time to take care of him, cover all her teaching duties, _and_ get her university degree. Anyways, he's here now."

"Yeah," Harry agreed, a little distractedly. This was not the Malfoy he expected. This Malfoy was polite and distant, not rude and defensive. "But I mean—what do you want me to do?"

"Granger thinks you might be able to help. Have insight."

"Why?" Harry asked blankly, and Malfoy's eyes flickered over to him again, then rolled heavenward.

"Perhaps because you're both war orphans who grew up in unstable households?" he suggested sweetly. "Honestly, Potter, I knew you were a bit dim, but I didn't realize it was quite so bad."

That was more what Harry had been expecting, but Malfoy's words still sounded oddly forced. "Oh," he said. "R-Right. Well. I suppose I can—try to help out."

 _If there's anything a broken shell like me can do_ , he thought bitterly, and then was embarrassed and shocked at himself in turn. He wasn't the only one who'd lost things during the war. He could do this. He could keep moving, just the way everyone else was. As Malfoy let the doors to the Great Hall shut, he glanced back at the boy in blue. He'd try to help. He'd try to be a good teacher. Surely, he thought, his stomach turning over again, surely he could do at least that much


	3. Waking Nightmare

**Chapter Two: Waking Nightmare**

"DAMN IT!" Jace ducked quickly as a small, cylindrical projectile whizzed past his head and caromed into the wall. He glanced back across the common room to see Ral pacing back and forth, waving his hands in the air. "It doesn't make any _sense_!" he raged. "Batteries can't just stop WORKING! What, do the chemical reactions get _scared_ of the magic? Are the ions _hiding_? This—is— _bullshit_!"

"You're going to get into trouble again," Elspeth said, looking up with a grin. Over their first week at school, she and Jace had gotten quite used to Ral's explosions of temper and angry swearing, which happened every time he tried to get some of his Muggle technology to work. He'd already racked up three detentions for "unacceptably foul language."

"I don't care," Ral sulked. He threw himself down onto the couch beside Jace. "All of this is stupid. This school is so stupid."

They were in the Hufflepuff common room, killing a little time during their lunch hour. Ral wasn't really supposed to be there, but he'd started following Jace and Elspeth back on day two, and they enjoyed his company.

Jace sat up curiously, leaning over Ral. "I'm kind of curious, too," he said. "I mean, this stuff obviously works somewhere. Why doesn't it work around here?"

"It just doesn't," Elspeth shrugged.

"Yes, but _why_?" moaned Ral. "It's impossible!"

"Clearly not." She stuck her tongue out at them and then went back to reading her magazine.

"And that's another thing! How come you can take photographs with magic? How is that different from videos? I bet my digital camera wouldn't work either— _why_?"

"I wish I knew more about Muggle things," Jace said sadly. "It seems silly that they don't work. They sound so interesting. Sometimes you make them sound better than magic."

"Because they _are_ ," Ral insisted. "Because _they_ make sense."

Jace really wanted to know. And, he thought suddenly, there _was_ a way he could find out. He could know what Ral knew, or some of it, at any rate. His hand was already flying to the clasp of his cloak when he paused, a little ashamed. He knew he wasn't supposed to take it off—other people got nervous when he did, and he usually ended up giving himself a headache anyway. But—

"Um, Ral?" he said hesitantly. "I—kind of would really like to know more about Muggle technology."

"Well, I'd show you, but none of my fucking tech works," growled Ral. Elspeth waved a frantic hand in their direction, and he quieted down momentarily as one of the prefects walked by, shooting a glance in their direction.

"I could see it anyway, if you'd let me," Jace said quietly. "I'm a legilimens."

"Huh?" Ral asked. Oh, right.

"I can read minds," Jace said in a hushed voice. "If I take the cloak off." An instant later, he regretted having said anything. After all, he had just confessed to being an utter freak, even for a wizard. A freak with no past, with no home, with no family. Jace shivered, running through the possible litany of responses in his head. But Ral just tipped his head to the side.

"Huh," he said. "Cool." He thought for a minute. "Ummmm, okay," he said. "As long as you promise not to fu—screw with my head or anything."

Jace's head whipped up, and he had to stop himself from leaning forward and hugging Ral. "I promise," he said through a suddenly tight throat. "I won't ever do anything to your head you don't want me to."

"Could you, though?" Ral asked with sudden interest. "Can you do more than read minds? Could you implant memories? Or actually control somebody?" He rolled up off the couch and onto his knees, coming nose to nose with Jace. "Can you make them forget I have detention?"

Jace felt his face getting hot at the sudden interest. "I don't know?" he said sheepishly. "I haven't been allowed to practice much. Controlling someone is—probably a no. I hope not. That's an Unforgivable Curse."

"I'd forgive it," Ral grinned. "Depending on what you made me do."

"No, I mean—"

"Yeah, I know, I was paying attention during History of Magic yesterday. It was a joke."

"Okay, so you're—okay with me doing this?"

"Go for it."

Jace took a deep breath and undid the clasp of his cloak, slipping it off and letting it fall to the couch. Immediately, the chorus of voices boiled up in his head, and he flinched automatically, but it—wasn't as bad as it usually was. Maybe because there were fewer people around, or maybe because he was focusing on one specific person. Either way, it receded as he leaned toward Ral, to the levels of an almost comfortable buzzing noise.

Jace hadn't tried to read someone's mind in years, not consciously—not if you didn't count the Sorting Hat, anyway—and what surprised him most was how quickly the other voices faded out as he focused on Ral. For a moment, silence welled up around him, and then all of it started flooding into his head—images and thoughts and words, crowding and tumbling and bleeding all one over the other. Images on a screen, some of them, flickering from black words on a white screen to a screen within a screen, shrieking laughter in the background, and the taste of sugar on his tongue. Bright ringing noise and his mother's disembodied voice on the other end of the line. The Game Boy, shoving the cartridge in and turning it on for the first time. Two wires, connected on one side to a little cylinder, on the other side to a little, winking red light.

He wanted to know all of it, everything, storm surging in his mind as he tried to focus and feel and understand, grasp all the clashing, disparate images and force them together into a shape that made sense, but nothing made sense, and he was on his knees, his head splitting open, and sudden silence ringing in his ears.

Elspeth was kneeling in front of him, fastening the cloak about his shoulders as Ral hovered nervously behind her. Jace slumped forward against her with a long, shuddering sigh.

"Are you all right, Jace?" she asked, and he managed to nod.

"There's—there's a lot in your head," he said to Ral, a little limply.

"Sorry," Ral said. He was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, and Jace had a sudden, surreal moment when the world reversed and he found one of Ral's memories of rocking nervously like that welling up inside himself, but he shook his head and pushed it away.

"Don't be," Jace said, rubbing his hand across his face. "That was—really, really interesting. Really cool."

"Really?" Ral answered. "I mean, I have cool thoughts, but you seem kind of—not okay."

"I'll be fine." Jace got shakily to his feet, helped by Elspeth's hand under his elbow. "I've had worse than that. I guess I need more practice, though."

"Are you sure you should be practicing?" Elspeth said. "I mean, shouldn't this be something you wait for the professors to help you with?"

Ral gave her a look as if she were crazy. "How long has he been able to do this?" he shot back.

"Since I can remember?" Jace answered thoughtfully.

"And has anyone taught you yet?"

"Well, no."

"Well then," Ral said, folding his arms across his chest. "What's the point in waiting if all they're going to do is put a cloak on you that stops it from happening?"

"We could ask someone," Elspeth said doubtfully, but Jace shook his head.

"No, thanks," he said. "Most people aren't comfortable with—me. If Ral is okay with it, I'd rather just practice with him."

Elspeth chewed on her lip. "Maybe they're just waiting until you're older," she said, and Jace felt his heart sinking.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "I shouldn't have said anything. I'll just—" He started to get to his feet, staring down at his hands, which were blurring in front of his vision.

"Wait—Jace." Elspeth caught his elbow. "I didn't mean there was something wrong with _you_. I was just, um, worried about you."

He wanted to go back to his dorm room and curl up on his bed, and he fought against the tightness in his throat. "It's not a problem," he tried to say, but it came out as barely more than a whisper.

"We have Potions in ten minutes," Ral interjected awkwardly.

"Okay." Jace swiped his hand across his eyes. "We'd better get packed up then."

* * *

Jace had been expecting the explosion for five minutes before it happened. This was their first practical Potions lesson, and everyone had been working in silence because they were all somewhat nervous of Professor Malfoy, who rumor said had been a Death-Eater during the war and might even now be plotting some kind of revenge against Hogwarts. So far, Jace thought, the professor had mostly been strict but fair, but they hadn't had him for very long yet.

Because of the relatively small class size, all of the first-years had potions together, and Elspeth, Jace, and Ral were working together at a single table, thanks to the fact that their professor had allowed them to choose their own lab groups.

Professor Malfoy gave an introduction to the lesson, and Ral was already frowning and fidgeting by the time he'd finished. His frown deepened as they began the lesson, and, while the first time Jace looked over, he was carefully following the instructions, by the second time, he'd put aside a flask full of the simple potion they were supposed to be making, and his cauldron was smoking.

"Um," said Jace. "Did you add the aconite before the lemongrass?"

"Yep," Ral said, sounding pleased with himself.

"You know Professor Malfoy said that would make it explode."

"Yep."

"Maybe we should duck," Jace said, just before the cauldron exploded.

As explosions went, it wasn't too bad, though Jace still found himself underneath his stool with his heart in his throat, clutching Elspeth's hand tightly. Ral ducked underneath, smoke rising from his hair, and said, "Oops, sorry, I forgot about the loud noises thing."

"It's fine," Jace said shakily. He thought he might just spend the rest of the lesson underneath the desk.

"Mr. Zarek," said the voice of the Potions Master from above them, sounding resigned. "You—already completed the assignment?"

"Oh," said Ral. "Yeah, I did."

"Did—did you purposely cause the mixture to explode after I explicitly warned you against it?"

"Um," said Ral. "Sort of?"

There was a pause. Jace wondered what Professor Malfoy was thinking. "Why on earth would you do that?" their teacher said at least, his voice rising into something that was almost a whine.

"I wanted to see if you were right," Ral answered, and Jace, getting slowly up from the floor with Elspeth, had to stop and giggle. Professor Malfoy shot him an irritated look, and he went quiet.

"Well," said Professor Malfoy. "Now that you have amply demonstrated that I was not, in fact, lying to you, perhaps you would be so good as to clean up your lab station. Ten points from Slytherin, Zarek, and detention."

"I didn't think you were lying! I just wanted to see if it was actually reproducible!" Ral complained. "I mean, it's ridiculous! Potions is basically chemistry, right? And so are batteries. So how come Potions works the same way each time, and my batteries don't _work_ here?"

Professor Malfoy looked baffled and pinched the bridge of his nose with his hand. Finally, he spoke again. "I—appreciate your dedication to scientific inquiry, but perhaps next time you're interested in reproducibility, you could just redo the potion you previously generated. Now, clean up your spot."

The girl across the table from them muttered something as Professor Malfoy headed back to the center of the room. Ral turned, with a confused glance, and responded rather loudly, "Oh yeah? We'll you're a—a pie-face!" Jace raised an eyebrow at him, and Ral shrugged. "She called me a mudblood," he said, still quite loudly. "So I—what?"

The room had gone dead silent. "Nissa, my office, _now_ ," said Professor Malfoy.

The girl who had muttered to Ral went white and then pink. " _You_ can't punish me for it!" she said, a little hysterically. "You're a Death-eater, everyone knows!"

Professor Malfoy's lips went thin and white. "I said go to my office," he said, his voice dangerously low. Nissa stuffed her wand rebelliously into her bag and got up, hunching her shoulders over as she left the room. The teacher turned back to Ral, Jace, and Elspeth. Jace and Elspeth were sharing horrified looks; Ral still seemed confused. "Mr. Zarek, if you have any further complaints about the lesson, you can discuss them with me sometime when you are not disrupting everyone else's ability to learn," he said, and stalked out of the room after Nissa.

"So," Ral said conversationally. "I have another detention and what just happened?"

* * *

Harry paced awkwardly inside his sitting room. He had sent an owl to Jace Beleren, the new first-year that Hermione (through Malfoy) had asked him to look out for, inviting him over for a cup of tea. He was now thoroughly regretting having done so. Jace hadn't even arrived yet, and he was already bloody nervous. And he was the grown-up, so he needed very much to not be the nervous one.

A soft rap on the door sent an uncontrollable shiver down his spine, and he looked at the steaming pot of tea he'd set in the middle of the room. The house elves had sent biscuits as well, though Harry hadn't asked for them. Biscuits were good, though, he'd have liked biscuits when he was eleven. He should have thought of biscuits.

"Come in!" he called out, then realized that Jace might not be able to hear him through the door and started toward it. Apparently Jace _had_ heard him, because he nearly brained himself on the door as it swung slowly open.

The child poked his head in. He was still wearing that long blue cloak over his yellow-trimmed robes. It clashed horribly, and was so much too long for him that a solid foot of it dragged on the floor, the edges collecting dust and tears.

"Come in, come in," Harry said, and then realized that that made three times, and that he sounded far heartier than he felt he should have. "Er, please take a seat. Have a biscuit."

Shuffling across the room with his hood pulled low over his head, the boy seemed tiny inside the voluminous cloak. Had Harry ever been that small himself? _Yes,_ his brain reminded him. _And you also killed Quirrell when you were that size_.

Jace slipped into the chair and peered up at Harry, who tried to smile more widely and pushed a cup of tea and the biscuits at him. "Am I in trouble?" the boy blurted suddenly, his hands wrapping around the teacup.

Hadn't he made it clear that he was just inviting Jace over for a chat? "Er, no," Harry said. "I just thought it would be nice—for us to—get to know one another." _You're an orphan? I'm an orphan, too! Let's bond over our shared lack of parental affection!_ God, this was painful. Why had he acceded to Hermione's request?

The boy nodded solemnly and sipped at his tea, eyes firmly fixed on his saucer in front of him. Harry sighed and grabbed for his own cuppa, burning his tongue in his haste to try and appear gracious. "So you're a Hufflepuff, then?" he said after a long minute. His voice still sounded horribly upbeat and fake to his ears, and he was sure that Jace would be able to tell.

The child nodded, still not looking at him, and reached for a biscuit. After a moment, when he couldn't think of anything to follow up with, Harry did as well.

After forty-five minutes, they had finished the tea and biscuits, and Harry had commented several times on the state of the weather and managed to ask how Jace's lessons were going ("fine"), and he knew no more about the boy than he had when he'd entered. Most of what he did know was still what Malfoy had told him. Finally, he sighed, conjured the kettle and empty plate back to the kitchen, and said, "Er, this was, er, enjoyable. We should do it again," got a half nod from Jace, and then continued, "I suppose you want to be getting back to your dormitory now."

Jace practically leapt out of his chair, Harry noticed, displaying the first signs of animation since he'd come into the room. "I have a lot of homework," he agreed, which was more words than he'd managed to string together yet.

"Well," said Harry. "If you have any—questions—you can ask me anytime. In class or out of it," he added belatedly, though the first-years had still only had one DADA lesson thus far.

"Thank you," Jace said politely, and left, dragging the cloak on the ground behind him. Harry flung himself down in his chair with a groan.

* * *

"Hermione, I don't know how to do this," Harry said pitifully into yet another cup of tea.

"Just give it time," she replied tiredly, and he felt a twinge of guilt for bothering her. "Jace doesn't warm up to anyone right away."

"It was the most awkward thing since my breakup with Ginny," Harry continued dolefully. "And I am not good at teaching."

"You are fine at teaching," Hermione said severely, sitting down across the table from him. "You tutored the DA, remember."

"That was different," he complained, aware that he was starting to get whiny and a bit self-pitying, but not quite able to stop.

"Well, yes," Hermione agreed, to his surprise. "That _was_ different. You were a grumpy teenage boy with only a few years' worth of experience on the rest of us."

"Bloody hell," was the only response Harry could come up with to that. He looked down at the dregs of his tea, wondering what Sybil Trelawney would make of them. She was still teaching divination as far as he knew, though he had yet to encounter her. He'd been spending most of the time when he wasn't actively in the classroom trying to put together lessons—or having awkward encounters with children that Hermione had asked him to look after. "So…" he said after the silence started to stretch into the long and awkward. "Are you getting on all right with Malfoy?"

Hermione nodded, sipping her tea, suddenly oddly pensive. "He's changed quite a lot since the war," she said. "Well, we all have, I suppose. He'll still snap my head off sometimes, but he usually apologizes these days. And it's not as if I _haven't_ screamed at him before. Getting my university degree put me under a lot of stress, and, well, I didn't have a lot of people to confide in."

Harry winced slightly. "I didn't mean to leave you—"

"—alone with the git?" Hermione stuck her tongue out. "You were under just as much stress as I was, what with passing the Auror exams and dealing with the—thing—with Ginny. And then there was Ron, or, rather, there wasn't, and one thing led to another, and I started chatting with Draco a lot."

"He's teaching Potions this year, right? He's not playing favorites, is he?" Uncharitably, Harry wondered if Malfoy might do the same kinds of things that Snape had. After a moment, he shied away from the thought of Snape entirely; his feelings on the matter were too complicated for him to parse properly. There was a lot of unresolved confusion and anger there, he supposed, and he didn't want to dump it onto Hermione.

"No," Hermione said. "Slytherin has lost a truly astonishing number of points in the last week. Mostly due to their one new acquisition."

Harry blinked at her.

"There was only one first-year Sorted into Slytherin this year," Hermione explained. "Oh, Harry, it was really awful, the Sorting Hat tries so hard, but _no one_ wants to be Sorted Slytherin, and the numbers just keep dropping. I've tried all kinds of things, you've no idea, and there was _still_ just one person Sorted Slytherin this year. And I don't think any of the rest of the house likes him, because he's gotten about five detentions already and probably lost them at least fifty points. And he's a Muggle-born."

"That's still—of course it's still a thing," Harry interrupted himself in disgust. "Why would I think that after the war people might stop looking down on Muggle-borns?"

Hermione reached over his cup and put her hand on his. "It's getting better," she said. "I mean it's really getting better, it is! There's anti-discrimination petition going through the Ministry right now, for Muggle-borns _and_ squibs. And I'm even beginning to get somewhere with SPEW. Ginny and I have been working out a bit of a renaming and a rebranding, and I think it'll be quite popular once we manage to—oh—I'm sorry."

"That's nice, Hermione," Harry said quickly, not wanting to talk about his ex-girlfriend. "Anyway, I'd better be getting back to my room. Got a lot of lessons to plan."

He knew he was being a bit unfair and probably hurting her, but he was suddenly suffocating in the little room that smelled of tea. He needed to go flying.

* * *

There were thirteen candles standing in a row. They weren't burning very brightly. Jace crouched beneath a long, low bench and stared at them, trying to see into the darkness beyond, but there was nothing there but solid blackness. Then—a hand crept out of the darkness, reaching for the furthest candle. Two fingers pinched the wick between them, and the flame died with a tiny hiss.

Shrinking back against the tile floor behind him, Jace watched in horror as the darkness crept closer. Slowly, the fingers reached out again. A second candle hissed and died. Jace wanted to shut his eyes against the sight, but if he did, it would be dark that much sooner. He wanted to run, but he couldn't move. His arms and legs wouldn't obey him. He could barely breathe.

One candle after another winked out, until there was only one left. The hands reached out and snuffed that as well, but there was still light, bright and yellow, illuminating from one spot. Jace looked down. There was a flickering candle inside his chest, glowing brightly between the emptiness of his ribs. The hands reached out again.

He was in a bed, the sheets tangling around him. He sat up, barely remembering to cover his mouth with his hands, and curled over on himself, burying his face in his pillow so he couldn't scream. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know how they'd react to him screaming.

 _Checklist_ , he told himself, teeth chattering. He felt around his shoulders. Cloak was still there. Reached under his pillow and came into contact with a long stick of wood—his wand. Right. He was at Hogwarts. Wasn't he? He pulled the wand out and muttered, " _Lumos_ ," through chattering teeth, but the pale, silvery light that bathed the interior of his four-poster bed was almost worse than nothing.

It had been an especially bad nightmare. Even though he kept repeating to himself, "just a nightmare" over and over again, something in his brain didn't want to believe him. It was like a switch had been flipped. Every time he shut his eyes, he bolted upright in half-asleep terror.

Finally, one hand over his mouth to muffle his heavy breathing, he got out of bed, doused his wand, and pulled off his cloak, bundling it up under one arm. The babble of incoherent voices made him flinch, but the terror drove him onward, out of his dormitory—which he navigated by touch, constantly certain that something was about to reach out and touch him—down the stairs and out the entrance of the common room into the hallway.

There was someone in the corridor, but it was easy for Jace to avoid them. Their thoughts were dark and angry, though, and he flinched and huddled himself into a corner of the stairwell for a good few minutes before he could get himself to move again. He knew he was looking for something, but, as sleepy as he was, he wasn't sure what, until he heard the soft mutter of a familiar voice in the back of his mind.

Following it was like following the light, except that this light wouldn't go out. Jace didn't know how he knew that, and every few minutes he snapped awake, but by now he was lost in the castle and wouldn't have known how to get back to his dorm if he'd tried. He went up one flight of stairs and down another one, finally pausing in front of what looked like a blank stone wall.

He knew it wasn't, because he could hear the voices coming from beyond it, but he didn't know how to get through. But he had to, because he was still sure there was something coming after him. No, that didn't make any sense. He knew it didn't make any sense, but the sensation of nearly overwhelming terror wouldn't go away. The feeling of—something—stalking him gleefully through the corridors of Hogwarts, toying with him, unless he could get to some kind of safety.

Jace sobbed as he bent over the blank section of wall, and he _reached_ , in a way he hadn't known he could. Memories cascaded through his brain, and he ignored all of them, throwing them aside, until he came to one of standing in front of this same wall, the golden afternoon light just tricking down from the stairs above, and a murmured word.

With a desperate gasp, he babbled it out and fell through the wall just before—he was sure—the thing caught up with him. Could it get through the wall? _No_ , Jace reminded himself, _no, because you're imagining things._ Still, even though the feeling of being stalked had diminished a little, he was still terrified.

Instinct drove him over to a set of stairs in the wall, and he crept down them, quite suddenly coming to the bottom and passing a tapestry that served as a doorway to enter another room. The quality of the air changed, and the voices became louder. Jace realized suddenly that he'd stumbled into the Slytherin dormitory.

He pressed his hands to his ears, a habit he hadn't managed to break himself of, even though he knew that it would do no good to abate the flood of jagged whispers. He'd have to put his cloak back on in a minute, but first, he needed to—there. The thin thread of bright, explosive thoughts, dimmed in sleep, but still eminently recognizable. The bed nearest the door.

With shaking hands, Jace pulled his cloak back on and slipped through the faded velvet curtains around the bed. "Ral," he whispered, putting out a hand to shake the bed's occupant. "Ral, wake up." It wasn't until a moment later that he realized he had no idea what he'd do if he'd been wrong about who was sleeping here.

There was movement in the bed, and then a sleepy voice said, "What the fuck?" Jace relaxed slightly and had to fight against the sudden sob welling up from his throat.

"It's me," he said.

"Is it morning already?" Ral sounded dopey. He shifted around in the bed some more.

"Um, no," said Jace.

"Then why am I awake?" Ral whispered irritably. "Ugh."

"S-Sorry," Jace managed, his hands falling to twist in the folds of his cloak. "I'm r-really sorry. I just—had, um, nightmares."

There was a pause. "They're just dreams," Ral said, finally. "What do you want me to do?" He sounded curious, though, not dismissive. "Oh! I bet you could read my mind while I was dreaming and then would you get my dreams? Or would I just end up getting your nightmares?"

"I don't know," Jace answered. "I never tried it. I never had anybody to ask, I guess."

Yawning, Ral moved around in the bed. "So is that what you were thinking?" he prompted. "I should get back to sleep if I can."

"I just—" Jace stalled. He hadn't thought much past this moment. The surreal, horrible feeling of the nightmare was still clinging to him, and he reached out with one trembling hand and felt for Ral's shoulder beneath the blankets. "You're real, aren't you?" he whispered fearfully. " _You're_ not a dream?"

"Of course I'm not a fucking dream," Ral groaned, his voice made stupid with sleep.

"Okay," Jace said, faintly reassured. "I guess…" he paused reluctantly. "I should—go back to bed…"

"Oh my god," Ral said. "Yeah, you really sound up to it. Urgh." He yanked the blankets up and rolled to the side of the bed. "I swear if you kick me I will throw you out," he grumbled.

"You don't mind?" Jace asked.

"Only if you shut up in the next thirty seconds."

"Okay." Thankfully, he tunneled into the bed beside his friend.

Ral yelped. "And keep your ice-cold feet on your side of the bed," he ordered.

"Sorry," Jace murmured, but he curled blissfully into the pocket of warmth that Ral had opened for him. The solidity of Ral's back behind his was wonderfully reassuring. The grip of the nightmare was finally starting to recede.


	4. Mischief and Mayhem

**Chapter Three: Mischief and Mayhem**

"Hermione, do you think you could take a detention for me this afternoon?"

Hermione Granger looked up from the pile of papers she had been grading, forcing a smile that turned almost real when she saw that the person addressing her was Draco Malfoy. It was odd, she sometimes thought, that they got on so well nowadays, but, well, over the last three or four years, Draco had been around. Not obtrusively so, but present, in a way that several of her friends hadn't been. Draco never made himself the center of attention anymore—a few times she'd seen him swell up as if he was about to make a Pronouncement, but each time he'd deflated before the words left his mouth.

"Probably," she replied with a frown, looking down at the papers. "I've almost finished with the third-year essays on the Salem Witch Hunts, and I don't think I need to do anything else today. Why? Too busy?"

"I'm trying something new these days, preparing my lessons beforehand," Draco drawled, raising an easy eyebrow at her. "Also, I think you might get on better with the Zarek boy than I would."

"Oh?"

"He's Muggle-born. And it shows."

Four years ago, Hermione's hackles would have risen at that statement, said in Draco's blandest, most irritating tones. Today, she just laughed. "Too much trouble for you?"

"We do not speak the same language," Draco replied.

"You really must take a Muggle Studies course at Uni."

"Perhaps, if Professor Slughorn would deign to grace us with his presence once more, I'd be able to find time to do so." They smiled at one another.

"What kind of detention? Lines?"

"No, I think Mr. Zarek has had plenty of those already." At Hermione's questioning look, he smirked and continued. "He has something of a profanity habit, and a certain carelessness around prefects."

Hermione snorted. "All right, so what, then?"

"Get him to perform this experiment." Draco handed her a sheet of parchment paper, which she read over quickly. "A fire protection potion? That's quite advanced, isn't it?"

"He's quite a talented young man," Draco replied. "In any case, I've certainly seen second-years brew it successfully. Do try and explain to him that it will, in fact, explode, if he performs the steps that it explicitly warns against."

Hermione blinked. "Wait, what?"

"The reason that Mr. Zarek has detention," Draco explained silkily, "is that he wanted to make sure that, in fact, his Cure for Boils _really would_ explode if he added the aconite before the lemongrass."

"Didn't the instructions say that—"

"Both I and the instructions made it very clear. Mr. Zarek seems to have a certain amount of, shall we say, distrust for magic. He was complaining that this was 'just chemistry' and therefore his 'batteries' should work."

"Hm," said Hermione. "Well, I'll try to impress on him the need for safety. Maybe he wasn't paying attention during your opening speech."

Draco's eyebrows went up. "If you manage to get the Zarek boy through that, do let him keep the potion. I'm sure he'll need it."

Hermione shook her head as Draco left the room. He was a good teacher, but he _did_ sometimes explain things too fast. Or maybe Zarek had been trying to create a mess, but he wouldn't do so in detention, surely.

Ral yawned widely and kicked his heels against the desk. Detention, thus far, had been boring. He had written huge quantities of lines until his hand was aching, and he'd become determined to figure out a simple spell that would do it for him in the future. Maybe then he could start napping his way through detention. Having Jace creep into his bed in the middle of the night most nights was tiring. He didn't really mind being a little tired, but it was also—just a little bit— _weird_.

"Do not tell anyone about this," he'd said the first morning.

"Right," Jace responded. "We don't want to get in trouble." Then he'd blushed and scratched the back of his head. "Sorry," he continued. "I know it's kind of—awkward. If—if you need me to not do it anymore, I'll probably be fine."

But he'd sounded so doubtful that Ral groaned. "Ugh, if you need to come back then okay," he said. "Just don't tell anyone. It's just because of your nightmares. It's not anything—" his ears were frustratingly hot. "—you know."

"Yeah," agreed Jace, staring carefully at the ceiling. "Sorry again."

"It's okay." It hadn't been _that_ awkward, anyway. He occasionally bumped his elbow into Jace's head, but it made the bed warmer, and he was asleep for most of it anyway. Just as long as no one found out and thought they were having sex or something. That would be _really weird_. And they'd probably get in trouble.

"Mr. Zarek, I'm ready for you now." Professor Granger put her head out of the classroom door. "Since you had some difficulty in Potions class, Professor Malfoy thought you should practice a little in a controlled environment."

Ral perked up. He hadn't expected that. Despite his irritated objections during class, he actually did find Potions fascinating. If it hadn't been for the fact that it made no sense that a few wand strokes made them work when his batteries remained frustratingly and mysteriously unusable. As he got up, he stuck his hand into his pocket and felt for them. Yes, the two little batteries were still there. Somehow, he felt better carrying them around with him.

Professor Granger led him into a small room with stone walls. On the front-center desk, there was a little bubbling cauldron laid out with a number of ingredients. "Today, you'll be making a fire protection potion. It's rather advanced, so please pay careful attention as I explain the process."

She handed him a piece of parchment with elegantly handwritten letters, which made Ral roll his eyes slightly. Did no one do anything the efficient way? Did they not have the _printing press_? Maybe not, if they didn't have electric lights. Although, he admitted, he had been considering finding a way to make his quill write by itself. Maybe they had a way to do that. Maybe they just had more handwriting-like fonts.

Professor Granger's introductory speech was almost identical to Professor Malfoy's the previous week. Ral tuned most of it out once he realized she was just going over what was on the paper. This detention certain promised to be more interesting than the last few. And a fire protection potion might actually be useful.

Once Professor Granger let him start working with the equipment, he followed the first few steps quickly and accurately, then paused. The next step read, "Add the baking powder to the vinegar solution, stirring all the time with your wand to prevent an explosive reaction." Well, _that_ didn't make any sense. Ral was on firm ground here. He'd made several vinegar-and-baking-powder volcanoes in the past few years—it was a popular project among his primary school teachers, for some reason, and Ral enjoyed the excuse to make a mess, even if he'd studied the science behind it several times before.

And now this spell sheet was telling him there would be an explosion if he didn't stir the mixture? That didn't make any sense, Ral thought in frustration. He'd done this before, and it hadn't exploded. He knew the science behind it; it wasn't that violent a reaction. So if it really did explode—then what? Then science didn't work? But it had always worked before. So there had to be—another variable? He hesitated, one hand on the baking powder, hovering over the solution.

"Mr. Zarek!" Hermione's flustered voice. Ral looked up at her and instinctively tipped the container of baking soda over as he did so. There was a very loud noise.

" _Protego_!" Something sizzled in front of Ral's eyes, and he jumped backwards. His cauldron clattered to the floor on the other side of the table, and Professor Granger stalked forward. "Honestly!" she said. "Weren't you paying any attention when I warned you not to put the baking soda in if you didn't have your wand in as well? I would have thought you wouldn't want a repeat of your abysmal Potions performance last week."

Ral felt a scowl rising to his face as he stared down at the melted remnants of the potion he had been brewing. "It shouldn't have done that," he said sullenly.

"Oh, I suppose you know better than the professor who wrote this tutorial?" Professor Granger's voice was slightly breathless, but sharp.

Ral looked up again. "Yes, I _do_ ," he said angrily. "I've done this before. Before I ever got a letter from Hogwarts, I used to make volcanoes in my kitchen, and they didn't explode. It doesn't make _sense_. None of it makes sense. Science can't just not work. I mean, hypothesises can be wrong. I know that. But I've _seen_ this reaction happen, and this doesn't make any fucking sense!"

Professor Granger's angry look melted away. "Oh dear," she said. "I'd forgotten that—" she paused. "This is really bothering you, isn't it?"

"Newton can't be wrong! Five hundred years of scientific methodology can't just be _thrown out_!" His throat was tight, and he hoped she couldn't hear the slight irregularity in his voice.

"Not wrong," Professor Granger said, gently. "Incomplete."

"Incomplete?" Ral repeated.

"You see," she continued. "Magic is, well, an energy source, or a set of energy sources, basically, that isn't always around. If you're not near a witch or wizard, there's no magic, just like there isn't any heat if you aren't near a candle. Physics and chemistry don't always work the same way around magic, but it doesn't mean they're inconsistent. It just means you're working with another variable."

 _Another variable._ He had been _right_. The sudden wave of despair lifted from his shoulders as suddenly as it had fallen onto them. "So—there's a reason my batteries don't work?"

She nodded. "Yes, the side reactions that normally go very slowly are expedited in the presence of a wand, so many kinds of Muggle batteries are drained in a matter of seconds."

"Has anyone made batteries that do work? I mean, if that's true, you should be able to do technology with magic, right?"

"You…should," the professor said slowly. "Unfortunately, the scientific method isn't as deeply entrenched in wizarding culture as it is in Muggle culture. There's a tendency to—to, well, look down on it. Because it was so heavily influenced by Muggle society. But there _are_ people who study this kind of thing. Actually, it's one of the things that I'm hoping to do myself." She paused, as if collecting her thoughts. "And is this why you have detention? You were trying to see if the scientific method worked on your Cure for Boils potion?"

Ral nodded, though honesty compelled him to add, "I mean, I kind of like explosions…"

"Hm," said Professor Granger. "Why don't you clean up this mess and then I'll let you go. And how would you feel about some private tutorials? I can't promise it would be a weekly thing, and if there are other interested students, I'd certainly be bringing them in as well—"

"You mean I could learn science _and_ magic?" Ral interrupted.

Professor Granger grinned at him. "We could learn it together," she said lightly.

"Fuck yeah!" Ral exclaimed, then paused. "Er, I mean, yes, please."

"I'll let you off this once, but do try to watch your language, Mr. Zarek."

Ral managed to nod, but his brain was already shooting off in dozens of different tangents, finally landing on one that he found especially appealing. _If it's the batteries that don't work, can I run something battery-operated on magical power?_

* * *

The wand felt quiescent in his hand. He focused on the soft grain of the wood, trying not to let it fuzz out. "Okay," he said slowly, voice sounding oddly blurred and rough. "So I am going to try this spell that I found in one of the books Professor Granger lent me. It's supposed to conjure a spark. It's similar to _lumos_ , but with more actual, um, electricity."

Carefully, he ran his finger down the page. "Here's the incantation," he said. "And it's a pretty simple wand motion, as well, you just—"

"Hi, Ral, hi, Jace." The memory shimmered and dissipated, and Jace was back on the couch next to Ral, dizzy and disoriented. "Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you were…" Elspeth trailed off uncomfortably.

"Just practicing," Jace stammered, yanking his cloak back on. He knew Elspeth still wasn't entirely on board with him practicing his legilimency with Ral, and, worse, she seemed to have brought friends. He and Ral had rushed through lunch to get back to the common room quickly, but Elspeth had arrived a lot earlier than she normally did. Jace peeked sideways out of his cloak, hoping that whoever Elspeth had brought didn't already think he was a freak.

"Hey," Ral said, not sounding much more comfortable than Jace.

"These are Chandra and Gideon," Elspeth said, waving a hand at the two people behind her. "They're Gryffindors."

An answer was obviously expected. "Hello," Jace said awkwardly. "I'm Jace."

"Yeah, we know," the short red-head responded. "You're kind of obvious. And _don't_ ask if I'm a Weasley, because I will hex you."

Jace blinked. "Huh?" he asked.

"It's the hair." Chandra pointed to her head. "You'd think people would notice that I'm half Indian, but no one seems to."

Jace squinted at her face. Even with her saying that, he couldn't really tell, but he supposed Chandra knew what she was talking about.

"I'm Ral," his companion put in. "You might not know that." He sounded faintly defensive.

"You're the Slytherin first-year, aren't you?" Gideon asked slowly. He was tall and heavily-built, but seemed to fade into the background when Jace wasn't actively paying attention to him.

"Yep," Ral said. "And I'm a Muggle-born, too. And Jewish." Jace glanced sideways at him. Definitely defensive.

"Sorry," Gideon said. "Did I say something wrong?"

Ral shrugged. "Just thought we should get all of that out there in the open," he said, with a wide smile that didn't reach his eyes. Jace moved imperceptibly closer to him on the couch. Ral had gotten quieter over the past few weeks. Not a lot, but just enough that Jace had noticed it, maybe because he'd spent so much time in Ral's head. He had noticed that Ral usually ate his meals alone unless Jace and Elspeth specifically left the Hufflepuff table and went to eat with him, but he hadn't thought much about it because Ral usually seemed cheerful when they did.

"Ral, are you okay?" he murmured.

"I'm fine," Ral snapped. "Just figured Chandra and Gideon should know what they were getting into."

"Oh?" Chandra said. "Well, I don't care if you're a Slytherin, and I definitely don't care if you're a Muggle-born, and I'm Hindu. So there." She stuck her tongue out and giggled. Jace felt Ral relax just a little bit, but he went stiff again when Chandra continued thoughtfully. "Besides, I hear Jace is basically an honorary Slytherin anyway."

"What?" said Jace stupidly.

Chandra tossed her hair. "Elspeth said that she heard from Narset that Tamiyo was up late the other night and saw you sneaking into the Slytherin dorm room, Jace."

Elspeth went red in the face. "You weren't supposed to say!" she blurted. "I'm sorry, you two, I should've talked to you about it first, but we were chatting and it, um, it slipped out."

"Are you guys sleeping together?" Chandra asked avidly.

"No!" protested Ral instantly, and Jace sent him a sidelong glance.

"So was Tamiyo wrong? Didn't she see Jace? He's kind of recognizable."

Elspeth grabbed Chandra's shoulder. "Please stop interrogating them," she said. "It's not really our business."

Jace shifted uncomfortably again. "Um," he piped up. "I _was_ going to Ral's dorm room, but—but—" He closed his mouth as Ral punched him hard in the shoulder.

"Wait, so you and Jace _are_ sleeping together?" Chandra asked, with a snort.

"No!" Ral said, at the same time Jace said, hesitantly, "Yes?"

Ral glared daggers. "What?" said Jace. "I _have_ been sleeping in your bed."

Elspeth was giggling now as well, sounding slightly hysterical.

"Yes, fine, I have been letting Jace sleep in my bed," sighed Ral. "No, we aren't sleeping together."

"Huh?" said Jace.

"It would be completely screwed up!" Ral continued.

"What, because you're both boys?"

"No," Ral replied, with withering scorn. "Because we are _eleven_." He paused for a minute.

"I'm confused," said Jace. "How is me sleeping in your bed not us sleeping together?"

Elspeth started giggling so hard she had to sit down, and Jace looked over at her in more confusion.

Ral shut his eyes and put a hand to his forehead. "Jace," he said. "Haven't you had sex ed?"

"Um," said Jace. "I know about sex. Obviously."

Ral rolled his eyes. "That's what sleeping together means," he said stonily, barely glancing over at Elspeth, who had now fallen out of her chair, and Chandra, who was grinning widely. "It means having sex. Which we haven't been doing and aren't going to be doing. Because we're eleven."

"Oh," said Jace, feeling his face go warm. " _Can_ two boys have sex?" he blurted before he could stop himself.

"Of course they can!" Ral said authoritatively, then paused. "But I don't know how," he finished thoughtfully. "Damn, I really wish I had internet."

Elspeth fell onto the floor, and Gideon patted her on the back.

"So," Chandra said conversationally, plopping down onto the arm of the couch. "If you aren't having sex, how come Jace is sleeping in your bed?"

Looking up from the floor, Elspeth went suddenly serious. "Chandra," she chided.

Jace huddled down in his cloak. "Because I can't sleep otherwise," he mumbled. "I have nightmares."

There was a sudden hush that only Chandra seemed unaware of. "Oh," she said, swinging her legs back and forth. "Yeah. Me too."

Elspeth sat up and slid up to the couch near Jace's feet. "I have trouble sleeping, too, often," she said. "I wake up in the middle of the night and I—remember things."

"I don't remember anything," Jace said bitterly. "I just have dreams about all the things I don't remember."

Gideon took Chandra's arm. "We'd better go," he said abruptly. Before Chandra could object, he continued, "We'll see you again soon."

As they left, Elspeth pulled a small, unhappy face. "Sorry," she mumbled. "I didn't mean for things to get that awkward."

"Ah, whatever." Ral waved a hand. "Jace is sleeping in my bed, it's weird, I don't care if people think it's weird."

"Neither do I," Jace said. "People think I'm weird no matter what I do. At least this way I sometimes get a good night's sleep."

"It's not weird, though," Elspeth said. "I mean. Maybe it is, but it's also really common." She leaned her head back against the couch cushion with a sigh and reached over to squeeze Jace's hand. "When I wake up in the middle of the night, I've seen Nissa's light on, too. And Tamiyo is always yawning during the day, and Narset almost never talks. A lot of people have nightmares or can't sleep."

"Yeah, but they're not sleeping in my bed," Ral said, sticking out his tongue. He punched Jace's shoulder gently, and Jace grinned at him.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm extra weird."

"And it's helping you sleep," Elspeth persisted. "Sometimes, you said. But not always?"

"It usually stops me from, um, being scared," Jace said, looking down at his hands again. "But, yeah, sometimes I still end up lying awake."

"We should make a club," Elspeth said decidedly. "A Sleep Club."

"A what?" Ral asked.

"Jace sneaking into your dorm helps him sleep," Elspeth said. "So maybe some of us would sleep better if we shared beds as well. It might need to be with specific people, too, right?"

Jace shrank a little further into his cloak and glanced sideways at Ral. "Um, well, yeah, sharing a bed with somebody I don't know doesn't help."

"How do you even know that?" Ral demanded. "Do you just make a habit of creeping into stranger's beds, Jace?"

"No!" Jace said indignantly. "A couple of the—places I stayed at—didn't have that much room, so I had to share a bed with the kids there. And I still woke up with nightmares."

"So," Elspeth continued loudly. "A lot of the first-years have trouble sleeping, because we—well—"

"Because you lived through a war," Ral supplied. "Just a guess."

"Anyways, we do," she said. "Why don't we form a club to help with that? We could match people up and figure out ways to—"

"—sneak out of dorm rooms at night?" Ral asked with a grin. "Sure, sounds fun. I didn't think you were such a rule-breaker, Elspeth."

She flushed slightly, but smiled. "If it's for a good cause. And I know there are lots of potions and spells to help improve your sleep."

Jace looked up. "I've read about some," he offered. "There are potions for drowsiness—I think they're quite simple to make—and dreamless sleep and instant sleep. All sorts of things. I think it might even be possible to bottle good dreams."

"Really?" Ral asked. "How do they work?" Since he had started having one-on-one lessons with Professor Granger, Ral had become much more enthusiastic about doing things with magic, although he always asked 'how do they work,' a question that generally left Jace scrambling and also very curious.

"I don't know," he had to admit. "I've read _about_ them, but I don't know how to make them."

"I probably shouldn't ask Professor Granger for help with this," mused Ral, leaning back in the couch and staring up at the ceiling. "Bottling _dreams_ …could you share my dreams now, Jace? You can see my memories."

"I—" Jace paused. "I might be able to? I don't know if I want to try that yet, though."

"It's something to think about, though. We could go research sleeping potions in the library—I really, _really_ wish there was a magic internet, this would be so much easier, but that should work…" he trailed off, tongue caught between his teeth, as he sketched things out in his mind. Jace knew the look. He'd been in Ral's head while he was making it often enough to grasp what it signified.

"I think Ral's on board," he said to Elspeth. "In fact, you're going to have a hard time stopping him."

"Are you?" she asked, a little hesitantly, and he nodded.

"Yeah," he said. "I think—it's a good idea."

* * *

Frantic knocking on her door roused Hermione out of a doze at her desk. She looked up and groaned. She was supposed to be marking the second-years' essays tonight, and she'd only gotten ten done before she collapsed over them. It was turning out to be a difficult semester, especially since they had heard nothing from Slughorn since the owl about 'visa problems.'

"Come in!" she called, hoping it wasn't a student. Her hair was a mess, and she looked anything but professional. Harry poked his head around the door.

"Do you have a minute?" he asked.

"Actually a minute?" Hermione replied, trying and failing to suppress a yawn. "These need marked tonight, and I seem to have been sleeping on the job a bit."

"It's just—I was in Professor Slughorn's office to look for his copy of Elwig's _Curses and Counters_ , and he's got a bloody great cabinet just sitting in the middle of it. Do you happen to know why?"

Hermione stared at him. "Just an empty cabinet?"

Harry nodded. "I checked, there's nothing inside. It's sitting right in the middle of the room, too."

Hermione groaned. "I'll take a look tomorrow," she promised. "I really do need to get these papers graded right now, though."

"Yeah, sorry," Harry said. "Didn't mean to disturb you. I didn't realize how much stuff you have to do."

She managed a smile. "Honestly, Harry, it's not a problem. I can spend a few minutes chatting with my best friend."

"I've had Jace over for tea three times so far, and we've never managed to get past talking about the weather," Harry said unhappily.

Hermione, who had really been hoping that pairing up Harry and Jace would be good for the child, sighed inwardly. "Well, keep trying," she said brightly. "He hasn't exactly had the usual home life."

"Neither did I," grunted Harry, "but I wasn't this quiet. I don't know how to talk to somebody who doesn't talk. If he yelled at me, I could deal with it, but he's just—very quiet. I never know what he's thinking."

"Give it time," Hermione said, with a sinking feeling.

"Yeah," Harry replied, obviously trying to sound upbeat and not quite managing to do so. "Look," he said. "Hermione, are you really sure I'm the right person for this? I know Jace and I have a lot in common, but—what if we have too much in common?"

"Hm?" She leaned forward over the desk. Harry was shifting restlessly from foot to foot, the way he used to when she scolded him for doing something dangerous.

"I don't want to be a bad influence," Harry said softly. "The things I did when I was a kid were incredibly dangerous, but I had to do them. I don't want to see someone else get hurt because of me."

"I don't think there's any danger of that," Hermione responded dryly. "Mr. Beleren is far more likely to start taking risks because of his association with Mr. Zarek than because he's occasionally having tea with you. I seem to recall something similar happening to me as a child." She stuck out her tongue at Harry to show that she was joking, but his face fell even farther, and he sighed.

"I don't know what to do," he mumbled. "Sorry I bothered you, Hermione. I suppose it just feels a bit weird being a teacher now and having to enforce the rules."

"Well, we survived," Hermione said practically.

"I'll let you get back to your marking," Harry said, without seeming to really register what she was saying, and before she could think of anything else to say, he retreated, letting the door shut behind him with a heavy thud. The sound was echoed a moment later when Hermione dropped her head to the desk. This was worse than he'd been during their fifth year, by a mile. And she was so damn tired.


	5. Vow of Lightning

**Chapter Four: Vow of Lightning**

His breathing was too loud. He had to make it quieter. He pushed a hand over his own mouth as hard as he could, but that just made him sniff through his nose, which was stuffed with snot from crying. He had to stop crying. He had to be quiet. Ranna had told him to be quiet.

From under the table, he could hear voices. Rapid discussion, feet moving back and forth. Running feet. Crying. Screaming. Bursts of green light lit up the old mansion. There was something red on the floor. _Be quiet_ , Ranna's voice said in his head, again and again. _Be quiet, be quiet_. Then it faded, and he could hear nothing but mixed up, muddled thoughts. Eagerness, excitement, anger, fear. They all swirled together in his head, but the fear was the loudest.

They were screaming. Ranna's people were screaming, and pleading. She couldn't protect them. There were ropes on her hands and feet, and she couldn't protect them. _Stay there_. _Don't come out_ , she said, and it echoed back and forth, and back and forth.

More screams. More running. Pain and fear rose choking in his throat, and then there was a feeling of bright hot pain across his chest and stillness, but still more fear. Someone had died. Someone had died in a bright green light. Someone had died because they were looking for him.

 _Crucio_. Ranna was screaming, and no matter how much he covered his hands with his ears he couldn't stop hearing it. He should come out. They wanted him. But he was too afraid, trapped by the fear and the screaming and the pain, and he huddled against the wall and cried.

Ral woke so suddenly and horribly that he banged his fist against the wall. "Fuck," he gasped, not even bothering to try and stop himself. On the other side of the bed, Jace was whimpering and thrashing. His cloak had come undone and lay in a bunched blue pile beneath his head.

Taking a moment to control his trembling, Ral reached out and shook his shoulder roughly, and Jace, too, woke with a cry. He stared at Ral, and the other boy felt mental fingers in his head, pushing him away, before Jace gasped sharply, looking around wildly.

"Your cloak's under your head," Ral said. Then, when Jace made no move, "Put it on." Still nothing. Ral rolled over, grabbed the cloak and pulled it up over Jace's head, but his fingers were shaking too hard to fasten it. Jace surged forward suddenly and buried his face in Ral's shirt front. He was sniffling.

Ral froze. He had absolutely no idea what to do at this point. This was several orders of magnitude more awkward than things usually got. After a minute, he risked putting a ginger hand on Jace's head. "You okay?" he whispered.

Nod nod. Okay. So Jace still understood English. That was good. "That was a horrible dream."

Nod nod. "I'm s-s-sorry." Ral was relieved to hear Jace speak, even if he was stammering really hard.

"It's not really your fault," Ral replied, although he still felt shaky.

"I should stay in my room," Jace muttered, lying back in the bed with an exhausted flop. "I'm sorry. You shouldn't have to deal with any of this. It's not your problem."

"Fuck that," Ral said angrily. "You're my friend. You can't get rid of me that easily."

Jace managed a soft giggle, which was probably also a good sign. "Sorry," he whispered again. "My cloak usually stays fastened better than this."

"I thought the point of you sleeping here was that you didn't have nightmares."

Jace suddenly became very interested in tracing a spiral pattern on the pillow. "I don't have them as much," he muttered. "And this way I usually know where I am when I wake up. Mostly. I still sometimes get confused in the dark, though."

"You're dumb," Ral whispered back. He didn't know how to deal with this, but there was no point in letting Jace blame himself for not knowing how to deal with it either. "Just go back to sleep. Elspeth wants to start the Sleep Club thing tomorrow anyway."

"Okay," mumbled Jace. "You sure you don't want me to leave?"

"Just shut up and go to sleep," Ral grumbled, turning over. "I don't want to get in trouble for sleeping in class."

No reply, but he heard Jace give a shuddering sigh as he, too, turned over.

* * *

" _Fulgur_ ," whispered Ral, tracing his wand in a rapid, jagged zigzag. A little spark leapt from the tip of the wand to one of his knees, and he jerked at the sudden, sharp sensation. Okay. He could still get the spark to appear. He just couldn't figure out how to get it to _stay_. There was magical energy in the air around them—Professor Granger had made that clear several times now. So he should be able to set up something like a magical battery that was just the spell recasting itself to keep the lightning going, but he couldn't seem to figure it out.

He frowned. This was frustrating, but it was the kind of puzzle he knew how to solve. You just kept working and trying different things, and eventually, you'd start to get somewhere. Maybe. Hopefully. Admittedly, that hadn't always worked before, but he was going to _make_ it work this time. He might not know how to deal with Jace wandering around looking lost, or how to deal with the weird little bump-skip his heart did when he thought about the first meeting of Elspeth's Sleep Club happening later today, but he knew how to deal with a science project problem.

Snorting irritably, he cast the spell again. Again, the little spark shot from the end, this time caroming over the bed before dousing itself against the thick, velvet curtains. Ral resisted the urge to throw his wand across the room. _Fulgur_ by itself clearly wasn't enough. He'd need another spell, something more permanent, maybe a transfiguration or a charm.

He lay back on his bed, trying to think. Charms was an interesting class, but they hadn't learned much that was permanent, and they certainly hadn't learned _why_ permanent charms were permanent. One more thing he needed to ask Professor Granger next week. He opened one of the books he'd gotten out of the library and held it over his head, idly flipping through the pages until he came to one of the few charms he'd actually been able to make work properly that they hadn't learned in class.

Pointing his wand directly at the ceiling, Ral muttered, " _Nimbus_ ," and a stream of fluffy grey mist shot from the end of his wand and solidified into a small but definitely existent cloud that floated up into the air and hung over his bed. Chewing on his lip, he said, " _Fulgur_ ," again, sending another tiny spark flying upward. There was a quiet crackling noise as it hit the center of the cloud, and tiny jagged flashes of lightning spidered outward away from the impact. Ral stared for a while as they bounced around the edges, the swung his legs out of the bed. He shouldn't be late to Elspeth's Sleep Club meeting. He needed to start getting more sleep himself, which meant getting Jace sleeping better.

Besides, while Ral hadn't had any more of Jace's nightmares, he'd woken at least a few more times to see that Jace was having them, and it made him angry to see how easily Jace flinched when he woke up suddenly. Making a frustrated growling noise deep in his throat at how complicated his life was, Ral headed out of the dorm. Behind him, the soft crackling of the lightning did not abate.

* * *

"Okay," Elspeth said. "Let's go ahead and get started." She grinned, looking around the room, and Jace smiled back. Ral, the last person to arrive, flung himself down on the old couch and flashed him a careless grin.

Jace sat on the back of the couch, and Elspeth was curled onto its other corner, while Gideon and Chandra had squashed themselves into the fat yellow armchair in front of the fire. One of the unicorns embroidered into it stared out from under Chandra's fist, slightly bug-eyed. Two of the other Gryffindors, Koth and Sarkhan, sat with their backs to the armchair. Narset and Tamiyo, two Ravenclaws that Jace knew a little bit, sat cross-legged on the carpet, and their friend Dack sprawled at their feet. Ajani, a tall, silent, dark-skinned boy, stood behind the couch, one hand stroking the back of his pet cat.

"Um, welcome everybody," Elspeth said, going slightly red as everybody looked at her. "I know that most of us who are here have some trouble sleeping. Nightmares or insomnia or just being too scared to sleep. I wake up quite a lot myself. So I thought it would be a good idea if we could all come together and pool our talents and stuff to help out."

"If you want to sneak around after lights' out, for example," Ral put in with a grin. "We'll have to plan that. Jace manages it because he's a telepath, but that's not gonna work for everyone."

"What's a telepath?" piped up Tamiyo, pushing back her long, dark hair.

"That's Muggle speak for 'legilimens'," Chandra answered, and Ral scowled. "What? It is."

"Okay, let's not get too distracted," Elspeth continued. "I thought we could make a list of people's ideas and then sort of divvy them up. We could take practice naps during the afternoon and try to find partners who might be able to help each other sleep, like—um—" she stuttered to a halt.

Jace looked up and blushed. "Me and Ral," he supplied quietly. "Um, being around somebody else that I—trust—makes me have nightmares less."

"Yep," Ral agreed, crossing his arms across his chest as if daring anyone to say anything.

"I sometimes wake Narset up when she is sleeping badly," Tamiyo volunteered, and Narset nodded.

"I could really use somebody to do that for me," Elspeth admitted. "Maybe we should try to pair people up. It'll probably have to be girls with girls and boys with boys, because it's easier to sneak into someone else's dorm than to get into the girls' dormitory if you're a boy."

"Why don't we make a sort of sign-up list?" Gideon suggested. "We could post it in the common rooms. People who don't have nightmares can also help out if they're willing, like Ral is doing."

"Great idea, if the prefects didn't share the common room," Ral drawled.

"Oh," said Elspeth. "Right. Um."

"We can just ask people," Chandra said impatiently. "It'll be fine. You wouldn't want somebody you didn't know anyway."

"True," Elspeth agreed. "I think we should have a list of people who need partners, anyway. I'll keep it safe, I promise."

"What about other things?" Narset broke in, in a soft voice. "Potions and spells and things?"

"Jace and I collected some books from the library that look like they might be useful," Elspeth said, patting a stack of assorted volumes under her right hand. "We'll want to divvy things up, maybe make teams."

"Different people should try to get different ingredients," Jace put in. "That way even if the teachers catch us, they won't know what we're doing."

"I mean," Elspeth put in hurriedly. "It's not that we're doing anything wrong…" She trailed off.

"We're not," Ral shrugged. "We just want to experiment with this stuff on our own, right?"

"I don't want people to know," murmured Tamiyo. "I know that's a bit silly, but…"

Narset reached out and squeezed her arm, and they exchanged smiles.

"Okay," said Elspeth. "So we can divide all that up and maybe plan on having a weekly meeting? Is everyone okay with that?"

Jace looked up, nodding, to see that everyone else seemed to be nodding as well. Part of him was relieved that things were going well; part of him was simply curious. He enjoyed Potions quite a lot, even when Ral was exploding things, and he wanted to know if there were really Potions and spells that could help. Especially the bottled dreams he'd talked about with Ral. He'd had good dreams occasionally. If he could figure out how to store them, he could go back to them, and he could also give them to Ral to make up for having accidentally dumped some of his nightmares into the other boy's head. No one deserved to have to see those nightmares, Jace thought, his stomach tightening.

"Um, hi, are you lot here for the Sleep Club?" asked a new voice. Beside him, Jace felt Ral roll upright and tense.

The girl hovering at the edge of their group had her hands stuck deep into the pockets of her robes and was looking up from beneath a fringe of dark hair pulled back into a tight plait. It was Nissa, the girl who had called Ral a mudblood in Potions a few weeks ago. She was in Hufflepuff, but Elspeth and Jace had been avoiding her on principle.

"Yes," Elspeth said guardedly.

Nissa kicked at the ground. "Um," she said quietly. "I, um, I've had nightmares for a long time. I heard you talking to Jace." She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry," she said, not quite looking at Ral. "I shouldn't have—called you—a—" Her voice was shaking. "I know I shouldn't. It's just. They took my parents to Azkaban." She looked up at the ceiling. "They kept saying it was the mud—the Muggles' fault. And you kept screwing up in class, and I just—got mad."

Jace looked over at Ral, but his friend's expression was flat and impossible to read.

Nissa sniffed loudly. "Please?" she said. "I—I lie awake at night sometimes, and I can't sleep because I think the dementors are coming for me. I mean, I know they don't have dementors—there—anymore, but—but—"

Ral's shoulders went tightly inward, as Elspeth put out a hand toward Nissa and then stopped herself. Finally, he shrugged sharply. "Why are you all looking at me?" he asked loudly. "I don't have nightmares. I have homework I need to get done anyway." He started to get up, but Jace grabbed for his hand and held on. "Let _go_ , Jace."

Jace shook his head, but he couldn't find any words. Ral rolled his eyes. "Jace, c'mon. I need that hand. I have homework, I said."

It was all going to fall apart. Stupid Nissa. Why had she had to come over here and ruin everything? Apologizing didn't automatically make it okay. Just because she was having problems like the rest of them didn't make it okay.

"I get it," Ral said angrily. "I don't belong here. I'm not traumatized, and I have normal nightmares, and—oh, yeah, right—I'm a Slytherin. So quit pretending you want me around and _let me go_."

Elspeth got to her feet and stood in front of Ral with crossed arms. "Stop being such a baby," she snapped. "Nobody said any of that stuff. We were all waiting for _you_ to say if it was okay for Nissa to join in, because she hurt _you_."

"And if I say no?" Ral snapped back. "What if I _don't_ want to be around her?"

Nissa shrank back slightly.

"Then she can't join the club," Elspeth answered immediately. "She didn't hurt me, so I guess I could try to help her by myself or find somebody else to help her, but she can't be part of the club if _you're_ not okay with it. You don't have to be traumatized to be part of this. You don't have to be a Hufflepuff or a Gryffindor or a Ravenclaw. You just have to _be our friend_."

Ral looked down at Jace, who still had hold of his hand. "Whatever," he said. "Fine. She can join. She better not call me a mudblood again, though, or I'll punch her in the face."

Elspeth nodded and looked over at Nissa. "You can join, as long as you don't mind being punched if you're nasty," she said.

Nissa nodded hesitantly and went over to sit at the side of the couch near Chandra and Gideon. Ral sank back onto the couch. "You can let go now," he snapped, and Jace retreated into his cloak. "Because you were cutting off my circulation," Ral added, rolling his eyes. "Honestly. Stop being so overdramatic."

Jace crossed his arms indignantly. "You are the most overdramatic person I know!" he protested.

Ral stuck out his tongue, and Jace punched him in the shoulder. Elspeth rolled her eyes as she headed back to her seat.

* * *

When Ral went back to his dorm room to grab one of his textbooks before supper, he discovered that the cloud he'd left floating above his bed had apparently dissipated, which was annoying. Maybe the lightning spell had interacted badly with the cloud spell, which was supposed to stay until it was dismissed. Kicking frustratedly at the bedpost, Ral grabbed the textbook and headed down to meet Jace and Elspeth.

The first thing he heard as he ran down the stairs was Jace's voice. "I don't know! It just showed up in my dorm room and started following me!"

Elspeth's voice, giggling. "It's kind of cute, anyway."

"Yes, but it keeps raining on my head."

Ral rounded the corner to see that his little cloud had _not_ dissipated after all; instead, it was hovering several feet in the air over Jace's head, emanating an almost palpable air of slight nervousness. The lightning spell hadn't dissipated either. Stray bolts flickered continuously across the inside of the cloud, slightly illuminating the air around it.

Ral blinked. He was pretty sure that wasn't what the spell was supposed to do. When it saw him, the cloud rose several more feet into the air and wobbled over in his general direction, almost curiously, then turned tail and fled back to Jace's head.

"Hi, Ral," Elspeth greeted him. "Jace made a friend."

"Go away!" Jace waved his wand in the general direction of the cloud, which spat a bolt of lightning directly downward and retreated to Ral's head instead, then began to rain.

"I think you scared it," Ral said confusedly. "Um."

"Where did it come from?" Jace demanded. "And why does it keep trying to follow me around?"

Ral blew water out of his face and stared up at it. "I think I made it," he said doubtfully. "I was trying to find a way to make a permanent, uh, light. I don't know why it's following you."

"It's like a puppy," Elspeth said. When both of them turned to stare at her, she protested, "no, really! It got upset that Jace didn't want it, and then it got scared, and then it had an accident."

"Why did you make a puppy-cloud, Ral?" Jace asked.

"I don't know!" Ral protested, running his hand through his soaking-wet hair. "I just wanted you to have a nightlight, okay?"

"I still think it's kind of cute," Elspeth said. The cloud had stopped raining and was now gingerly hovering back toward Jace.

"Yeah," Jace agreed. "I just wasn't expecting it. Sorry I scared you, cloud." He put his wand up, more gently this time, and the cloud swirled nervously down, brushed the tip, and then floated back up into the air. The lightning flickers grew slightly less agitated. "I don't think it should come to dinner with us, though. Do you think we can get it to stay in the common room? I don't want it to get in trouble."

"Don't look at me!" Ral protested. "I didn't mean to make it!"

"Hm," said Jace. "Come on, cloud." He turned back to the Hufflepuff common room, and the cloud scudded across the ceiling after him. "You know," he said, pausing at the bottom of the stairs. "I, um, actually always wanted a dog." Then he pulled his hood over his face and pounded up. Ral stared after him.

"I miss Niv," he mumbled.

"Who?" asked Elspeth.

" _My_ dog," Ral replied, a little distractedly, as he stared after Jace. Even though his heart was suddenly tugging him back toward home, there was an odd warmth swelling in his chest. _I, um, actually always wanted a dog_.


	6. Sleeping Potion

**Chapter Five: Sleeping Potion**

Jace tipped his head back and looked at Kallist. He wasn't sure where the name had come from, but he liked it. Sunlight speared in through the windows of the stairwell, turning the little cloud almost golden around the edges. Through trial and error, over the past few days, they'd managed to get the cloud to stay in the Hufflepuff common room. It had taken a lot of repeated spellcasting, and Jace had had to leave his wand behind the first evening. It turned out Kallist wasn't very good at getting through small spaces, either, and would usually stay behind closed doors. On the other hand, he seemed to get nervous when he was left alone, and when he was nervous, he shot lightning in all directions. When they'd come back from dinner, they'd found him raining on Jace's bed, which was smoking. He, Elspeth, and Ral had had to hurriedly stuff the ruined quilt into Jace's laundry hamper, where hopefully no one would find it before they figured out how to make it less obviously burned.

"Well," said Elspeth practically. "At least he knew that it wouldn't be good to burn down the dorm room."

The one problem was that having the cloud around made it more difficult for Jace to sneak from his dorm room to Ral's. He'd nearly been caught several times the last few nights. It turned out he was a lot more visible when he had a little, illuminated cloud floating over his head, though at least having Kallist there tended to chase away some of the darkness. Jace still felt pretty sick and scared when he made his way to Ral's room, but he was less likely to feel as if the thing that he still felt was stalking him would actually catch him.

With an almost contented sigh, Jace shut his eyes and let the sun warm his face. There would be a Sleep Club meeting in less than an hour, and he and Ral would be able to work on the Dreamless Sleep Potion, which really meant pouring over various different textbooks on the subject, trying to figure out the reasoning behind it, since they still hadn't managed to get hold of the three most important ingredients. The fact that all three of said ingredients were kept locked in the Potion master's "advanced" storage made Jace slightly hesitant, but he knew it wouldn't stop Ral forever. Besides, if they did manage to make the potion, it should be obvious whether or not they'd done it right. Although Jace did wonder why no one had bothered taking photographs of finished potions for inclusion in their textbooks. It seemed like something of an oversight. Every time he and Ral made a successful potion, they took a picture, with a camera they'd borrowed from Elspeth. They currently had to ask the third-year photography class to develop the photos for them, but Jace knew Ral was determined to figure out how to do that as well.

He'd better not just stand here all day. With a sense of almost strange reluctance, Jace resumed his climb down the stairs towards the common room. Pausing with his hand on the door-handle, he yawned widely, his head suddenly heavy. His forehead knocked against the door, the faint scent of lavender suffusing everything. Something cold trickled down the back of his neck, and he blinked his eyes. Lavender. Lavender meant Drowsiness Potion.

"More rain, Kallist," Jace mumbled, pointing his wand upward. The cold rain on his head was enough to keep him upright as he shoved open the door of the common room. The scent of lavender rolled out, sickly-sweet and overwhelming. He choked, pulling his cloak up to cover his mouth.

A purple haze hung throughout the common room, as Jace stumbled in. Squinting through it, he could barely make out the mini cauldron bubbling away over a candle-flame at the central table, thick curls of rolling purple fog emanating out from it. It was _far_ too thick.

Digging his fingers into his palm and concentrating on the cold, steady trickle of rain from Kallist, Jace made it to the window, unlatched it, and threw it open, leaning out and taking deep, gasping breaths of fresh head cleared slowly, and the waves of purple vapor gently rolled down the side of the building around him. All right. Now he all he needed to do was extinguish the flame beneath the cauldron, which had been coaxed far too hot.

He took another deep breath and held this one as he headed across the common room. Someone must have forgotten the potion or something. If he didn't get this under control, the whole club would be in trouble.

As he passed the couch, he realized there was a small form huddled into a fetal position on it, and he nearly sucked in a lungful of potion again. Oh, Merlin. Tripping over his cloak in his hurry, Jace nevertheless made it to the other end of the room and simply yanked the candle out from beneath the cauldron, which continued to smoke slowly, but the bubbling eased and stopped. Jace turned back to the figure on the couch.

It was Elspeth. Her eyes were shut, and her chest rose and fell shallowly. Jace shook her shoulder, but her head just flopped to the side. He needed to get her out of the common room, where the smell of lavender was still making him lightheaded. How long had she been in here?

Jace grabbed her shoulders and tried to pull her upright, but he wasn't strong enough to lift her properly. Instead, he had to drag her onto the floor, take her arms, and start pulling her toward the door, hoping he wasn't hurting her too much. Panting, he had to pause every few minutes to fight against the surging dizziness. He was just beginning to realize that he was soaked through, but the room was so warm that he wasn't shivering. Finally, after what seemed like far too long, he made it out into the hallway. Letting Elspeth down, he went over and opened the window there as well. Thankfully, no one had come back to the common room yet.

"Elspeth?" he said, squatting beside her. "Are you all right?"

She made a muffled, protesting noise, and he reached out and shook her shoulder. This time, her eyelids moved slightly. Jace chewed on the inside of his lip, trying to decide if he should take her to the hospital wing. He'd probably bruise her getting down the stairs, and they might all get in trouble, but if she was really sick—

"Jace? Wha' h'pp'ned?" Elspeth's eyes opened and she tried to sit up, putting a hand to her head with a groan.

"You shut all the doors and turned up the heat under a Drowsiness Potion," Jace said slowly. "Are you all right?"

She slumped against the side of the stairs. "I think so," she said uncertainly. "I'm sorry. I must have—I couldn't sleep last night, and I was having trouble napping, so I thought if I put on the Potion…"

"You just, um, put it on too high, I think," Jace said, swallowing hard.

Elspeth covered her face with her hands. "I'm really sorry," she said through her fingers. "I didn't mean to—I'm really sorry." She looked up at him. "I just—I just wanted to be able to sleep."

"I know," Jace said, quietly, letting himself down onto the step beside her. "It's awful, sometimes."

Elspeth sniffed loudly and leaned her head against his shoulder. "Sorry. We'd better clean up the common room and warn everybody not to do that."

"Yeah, we can do that in a minute," Jace said. "I really get it, though. I can't always sleep myself and I get really guilty because I'm taking up space in Ral's bed, and I don't want to bother him, and—I mean, I'd have done it, too, probably. If you hadn't. I'd have tried it."

"What happened to you?" Elspeth asked, not in the hushed kind of way some of the children Jace used to stay with had sometimes asked, the unspoken 'why are you so _broken_ ' dangling after it, but in a matter-of-fact, almost curious tone of voice. "When I was six, Death-Eaters kidnapped my primary school class. I snuck us out, and everyone said I was a heroine, but it was just that they weren't keeping a very close eye on my class. It's not as if I got the whole school out or anything. I think about that quite a lot."

Jace squeezed her hand. "I don't know what happened to me," he confessed. "I mean, they found me in a burned-down mansion when I was five. I was the only survivor. I think it was probably a Death-Eater attack, but I don't know why. I dream about it a lot, but I can't—" He put a frustrated hand to his forehead. "—I can't put any of it _together_. There's just fear and darkness and—" he swallowed. "—well."

Elspeth nodded. "Yeah, I have dreams like that, too. They're the worst."

He gave her a small smile. "Maybe we should only brew sleep potions with partners from now on."

"Mm. Yeah. That's a good idea." They sat together for another few minutes, staring down the steps as the last of the vapor dissipated from the common room. Then Jace stretched and cracked his neck.

"I guess we'd better clean up the cauldron."

"Yes, we probably should." As they got to their feet, Elspeth put a hand on Jace's shoulder. "I don't think Ral minds, Jace."

* * *

The scent of lavender seemed to be hanging around the dungeon quite a lot these days, Draco thought, putting a handkerchief to his face, or maybe it was a sign that he was taking a little too much Drowsiness Potion as a sleep aid lately. It seemed, sometimes, as if everyone was sleepwalking—himself, Potter, Hermione, the students. Madame Pomfrey's shelves groaned with Dreamless Sleep potions, and Draco himself was idly toying with the idea of making a Bottled Dreams potion that didn't require a source of pleasant dreams to begin with, since there seemed to be something of a dearth of those around these days.

Perhaps it was only to be expected. Not only those who had been old enough to fight in the war had been affected by it. The whole country was tired. The Boy Who Lived was a man who had nightmares, who shut himself away from his concerned friends. Was this, Draco thought sardonically, what it was like to be old? Or was it something that really would fade in time, the convulsions of a country wiped away with enough space and enough years?

Merlin, he got melodramatic when he was overtired. Draco shook his head with a self-deprecating laugh, then pushed the door open and paused. There was a figure in a blue cloak standing, wand out, in front of the restricted ingredients cabinet.

Draco smirked and paused as the child whispered, " _Alohomora_ ," waiting for the inevitable response of the cabinet when someone attempted to access it without the secondary password spell. A beat later, his eyebrows rose into his hair as Jace continued, " _Momento mori_ ," and the cabinet swung open without protest. How had he known?

Ah. Two days ago, when Draco entered the first-year Potions class, Jace had been frantically fiddling with the fastener on his cloak. He had had it off, then, before Draco entered the room. And he had stolen into Draco's mind so quietly that his teacher hadn't even noticed.

He probably ought to be angry, but honestly the warm feeling in his chest was closer to respect, and a little bit of amusement. Still—he cleared his throat. Jace whipped round, and Draco winced at the sounds of shifting glass. Fortunately, nothing sounded broken. A patch of mist above Jace's head he hadn't noticed until now suddenly spat lightning and started to rain.

"P-P-Professor Malfoy," Jace stammered. "I was just—"

Draco, who had been about to issue a detention and dismiss the child, found his eyes drawn to the ingredients Jace had been starting to take out. Lemon balm, mint, rose petals. He was trying to brew a Dreamless Sleep potion. "Mr. Beleren," Draco said, striding forward, and then his heart smote him as Jace seemed to fold down, sinking into the folds of his too-large blue cloak, one hand instinctively trembling upward to shield his face. The boy was terrified. Draco had been on the other side of an exchange like this too many times.

"May I ask where you found the recipe?" he continued quietly, smoothly shifting gears. Jace stared at him, uncomprehending, flinching minutely as Draco reached slowly past him and collected the necessary ingredients. "Myrddin is what the library has, but it assumes some rather advanced knowledge on the part of the potion-maker. If you would like, I can lend you my copy of Fitzwalter. I always found him much clearer, especially for beginners." The boy fidgeted, body language shifting away from sheer terror and towards distrustful unease. Draco crossed swiftly to his desk, sliding out his dog-eared copy of Fitzwalter. "Here." He glanced upward, pausing before passing the book over. The cloud—yes, that was definitely a miniature cloud—above Jace's head was still drizzling slightly. "Do you think you could get your cloud to stop? I would prefer not to get my book wet."

Jace slowly drew his wand from within his voluminous robes, pointing it up with a trembling hand. "Kallist," he said softly. "Please. I'm very wet now."

"Does it—understand you?" Draco asked with interest.

"Um, we're not—exactly sure?" Jace said in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. "He seems like he does sometimes."

"Did you make him?"

Jace gave a half shrug. "Please don't make me get rid of him," he said in a rush. "I—I'm sorry about the potions cupboard, I promise I won't do it again."

Ah. This was tricky. "There are no school rules against having a—cloud," Draco said. "As far as I know. Although if it does have, er, habitual accidents, you may wish to keep it away from classes. As for the potions cupboard, if, in the future, you need materials from the restricted list, please submit the request to me. I need to be able to track where my ingredients are going, or the headmistress will likely cast a decapitation charm on me."

Jace shifted nervously. Draco could see he was considering the suggestion, and decided to push just a little. "All I ask," he continued, "is that you let me know if something truly bad happens. I won't ask questions."

The boy swallowed, fingers running along the edge of his cloak. "All right," he said quietly, keeping his head down and apparently still waiting for something. After a minute, he said, "Am I getting a detention?"

"No," Draco said, and Jace's head whipped up to stare at him in surprise. "I will, however, be taking ten points from Hufflepuff."

Jace blinked at him, apparently stupefied. "For what?" he asked uncertainly.

Draco smirked. "Getting caught," he responded. He pushed Fitzwalter into Jace's unresisting hands. "Now collect your ingredients and scoot."

As the child reached the door with his prize, he paused and turned back suddenly, which Draco hadn't expected. "Um, Professor Malfoy? Can somebody die from Drowsiness Potion?"

So he hadn't actually jumped in the deep end without trying something simpler first. Good. "Unlikely," Draco responded, "unless you're actually brewing somewhere that's airtight. Someone could get quite ill, though, so try to keep a window open."

Jace nodded, muttered something that might have been "thank you," and fled. Draco stared after him for several minutes before realizing that he was chewing thoughtfully on his thumb. Perhaps Hermione hadn't entirely thought through what she was doing when she asked Harry to mentor the boy.

* * *

"Potter, can I speak with you for a minute?"

Pushing his glasses up his nose, Harry turned to see Malfoy standing in the doorway of the classroom. Having just finished a long day of teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, he was not really in the mood to discuss much with anyone, and he was still wary of Malfoy in general. "What is it?" he asked guardedly.

"It's Beleren. Have you been getting on all right with him?"

Harry shifted uneasily. Several uncharitable answers came to mind, and he settled on the least defensive one he could manage, "I'm not great with kids."

Leaning against the doorway, Malfoy tilted his head to the side. "Do you—expect him to trust you, Potter?"

A twinge ran through Harry's back as his shoulders tightened. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" he demanded loudly.

"Did you trust adults when you were a child?"

That hadn't been where Harry was expecting him to go. He gathered up his books, frowning. "I—yeah—that's what kids do, isn't it?" Had he really, though? When he lived with the Dursleys, he wouldn't have thought a grown-up would be able to do anything about the fact that he lived in the closet. But then, that was just the way things were. Once he'd actually come to Hogwarts—well, he hadn't been a big fan of asking for help, but he'd known people were trustworthy. Hadn't he?

"Yes," Malfoy said, a little tiredly. "Yes, that's what children are supposed to do, isn't it?" One long-fingered hand went up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. "Just for a moment, Potter, pretend we're not talking about what is _supposed_ to be true and just listen to me."

"I don't really have time for a discussion today." Harry spoke tightly, maybe a little more tightly than he'd intended to. He'd been trying to avoid Malfoy, mostly. Spending too much time around the other man tended to make him think about the chaotic, dark days at the end of the war, when the Death-eaters had scattered, and Harry had joined the Aurors to hunt them down and drag them before the Wizengamot. On Harry's testimony, Lucius Malfoy had been sent to Azkaban. Narcissa and Draco had not, likewise because of Harry's testimony.

During the entire trial, Harry kept watching Draco's gaze sliding over to his father, silent and stern, and he'd felt absurdly guilty, even though he knew that Lucius ought to be put away. But he couldn't help but feel as if he should have done something more. From the end of the war until Harry had returned to Hogwarts, the only words exchanged between him and Draco had been a hushed, quick conversation after the trial. Draco, flanked by Auror guards, was being hustled out of the room, when he reached out, grabbed the sleeve of Harry's robe, and murmured, "Thank you." Harry hadn't even had a chance to respond and didn't know what Draco had been thanking him for anyway.

"Harry—" Draco said, sounding irritated. "I am trying to talk to you about a child who needs your—"

Pain shot through Harry's forehead, a lightning-strike of agony behind his scar. "I am doing my best, Malfoy!" he snarled. "If it's not fucking good enough, then fine. At least I'm a better role model than someone who nearly went to Azka—" He swallowed the last word in horror, but the twitch in Malfoy's facial muscles showed that it was too late to take back the sentiment. "Malfoy—"

Malfoy held up a hand. "Fuck you, Potter," he said, almost wearily. "I don't need your goddamn holier-than-thou attitude. Yes, you stopped me from going to Azkaban. Fine. I'm grateful. But all you did was prevent a miscarriage of justice. There are many things I deserve for the things I've done, but Azkaban wasn't one of them. My father belongs there. I don't."

"No, of course not. I—" The flash of pain and anger sizzled out as suddenly as it had flared up, but Malfoy was already turning to leave.

"You're right, Potter, I don't think we have time for a discussion today," he said, voice a flat monotone. "I'll talk to you later."

As the door swung shut behind him, Harry turned to the desk behind him and punched it. It didn't hurt nearly as much as he felt it should have.


	7. Starfall

**Chapter Six: Starfall**

"Let me see." Jace shoved at Ral's shoulder, trying to get to the telescope in front of him.

"You don't need to," Ral said smugly. "Just take off your cloak."

Jace glanced around nervously. They were in astronomy class, on the top of the astronomy tower, and there were more students around than there usually were when he tried to get into Ral's head. "I don't know," he said slowly. "Ral, just let me look through the telescope."

"You need to practice," Ral said, stubbornly keeping his eye pressed to the telescope. "Ooh," he breathed.

"What? Oh, come on. Fine." Irritably, Jace unfastened his cloak and shrugged it off, hearing the buzz of voices rise in his head. It was surprisingly easy to pick out Ral's mind and focus on it, though, so maybe the practice they had been doing _was_ starting to pay off. Shutting his eyes, he tried to follow that voice, the thread of sanity that wound its way into his nightmares and pulled him from his bed to the safety of the green-curtained four-poster in the Slytherin dungeons. The thoughts that kept him safe from the monsters he always felt in the darkness. Jace shook his head, focused, and opened it.

The first thing he saw was a bright, zipping light, fuzzily overlaid onto a night sky brilliant with stars. _So, is it working?_ Ral's voice, sounding almost as if he were whispering into Jace's ears.

 _Yeah,_ Jace thought back, awed. _Was that a shooting star?_

 _I saw that a minute ago. Try to focus on what I'm looking at now._

The physical sensation of himself pressed close to Ral's back was a weird kind of double-vision, since he could now feel it from both sides, as if he had his arms wrapped around himself. Distracting. Jace pushed at his own impressions, trying to will them to be less obvious, and Ral's became clearer.

 _It's a constellation. I don't know which one._

 _I think it's Pegasus, but we'd have to check our worksheet._ Jace could feel the paper brushing Ral's fingers loosely. There was something very—safe—about being welcomed into somebody's mind like this. It was like what Jace imagined having a room of your own might feel like. Or a room you shared with a close friend. Regretfully, he started to pull back as he felt a headache beginning to blossom behind his eyes.

 _Getting a headache. I'm going to have to stop._

 _All right. I'll let you have a turn on the telescope. If I have to._

"Mr. Beleren!" Jace cried out as the mental connection snapped at the rough touch of a hand against his shoulder. It was like the stinging sensation of a rubber band breaking on his fingers, except beneath the bridge of his nose and worse. He put a hand to his head, trying to focus on the words being spoken to him, but all the voices were rising up at once, a crescendo of mental sound, and so much of it—too much of it—focused on him.

- _what is he thinking?—_

 _-could be dangerous—_

 _-what a freak—_

 _-legilimency—_

 _-Voldemort used it—_

Jace was huddled back against the parapet of the astronomy tower, legs trembling, one hand in his mouth. Professor Sinistra was bending over him, and Elspeth was helping her fasten his cloak around him. "Mr. Beleren," Sinistra said, sternly. "What were you doing?"

What could he say? What was the right answer? "Nothing," he whispered.

"You can't just take your cloak off anywhere. Even if you were too hot, you should know better. You could hurt yourself or somebody else."

 _Freak._ Jace pressed a trembling hand to his eyes, suddenly overwhelmed by a desperate desire to be somewhere else—anywhere else. No. He couldn't leave. He had to stay here and finish the astronomy lesson.

"Did you understand me, Mr. Beleren?" Sinistra's voice was impatient. _Freak_. He could hear it pounding behind her words. _Useless, dangerous freak._ He could hear the voices, and they weren't just thoughts in his memories, some of them were words. _We don't want him. Can't the Ministry find somewhere else for him to stay?_

"I'll go," Jace whispered.

"Continue with the lesson and—"

"I'll go." The cold night air felt even colder against the wet tears on his cheeks as he ran for the door in the top of the astronomy tower. At first he was walking, but he heard her call after him, and then he was running—they wouldn't stop him by magic here, no full body bind, no stupefy, just voices calling. His feet slipping and sliding down the worn old stairs of the tower, Jace nearly fell, but caught himself on the railing, scraping the palms of his hands against the rough stone wall. Somewhere behind him, somebody called his name again, but he wasn't going to stop now.

He needed a place where nobody could find him, Jace thought, scrubbing desperately at his eyes, trying to stop the tears. Nobody but Ral and Elspeth, anyway, he supposed. If they still wanted to be around him.

He must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. He'd been trying to get back to the Hufflepuff basement, but he was pretty sure he wasn't anywhere near it, and he didn't know where to go. He could hear footsteps moving toward him, and he just—needed to not be here anymore. Not be anywhere. The sudden sense that he sometimes had in the middle of the night—of something following, hunting, _stalking_ him—flared up, and he flung himself forward in terror.

Moving frantically across the wall, his hand found a doorknob—he turned it and stumbled inside, letting it shut behind him and collapsing back against it. Sobs rose to his throat, and he tried to choke them down, but couldn't manage it. He should get out his wand, try to figure out where he was, how long he could stay—but as he stumbled forward, his foot struck something soft. He went down onto his knees and felt something soft. Like an old pillow, but bigger.

Another wave of desperate sadness washed over him, and he curled up on it, buried his face in its soft surface, and cried.

* * *

The click of the door opening woke him instantly, and he clutched for his wand. "—you really think we'll find him he—Jace!"

It was Elspeth and Ral. Floating above their heads, Kallist flickered with internal light. He surged forward immediately, dropped down almost to the level of Jace's head, and began to rain. Jace sighed.

Ral dove down beside him and pulled him into a rough hug. "Where have you been?" he demanded.

Jace blinked at him and looked around. "Here?" he ventured. The brief sensation of Ral's arms around him made him sniffle for some reason. "I guess I'm in a lot of trouble," he mumbled, pulling his knees into his chest. "Do I have detention?"

"Yes, unfortunately," Elspeth answered, kneeling beside them. "Kallist, stop that." She waved a hand upward, and the cloud bobbed upward. The rain slowed to a trickle and then stopped. "You also missed dinner, so I brought you sandwiches. Here." She pushed two large, lumpy loaves into his lap. "I didn't know how hungry you'd be."

"It's okay, I have detention as well," Ral said, heaving a sigh as he swung himself over into a sitting position next to Jace. In the flickering light from Kallist, Jace could see that Ral's face was bruised, and he had a small cut on his upper lip.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Sarkhan said something dumb," Ral replied. "So I hit him."

"You were overreacting," Elspeth said. "Eat your dinner, Jace."

Although he wasn't usually a fan of cheese sandwiches, Jace was hungry enough that the two Elspeth had brought tasted surprisingly good. "What did Sarkhan say?" he asked between bites.

There was an uncomfortable pause before Elspeth said, "Just that you have kind of—I mean that the stuff you can do is a bit—"

"He called me a freak, didn't he?" Jace asked miserably.

"No!" Elspeth protested, just as Ral said, "Yeah, so I punched him."

At his statement, Elspeth smacked Ral in the back of the head. "He did _not_ say Jace was anything. He didn't use the word 'freak', either."

"He was thinking it," Jace said, his throat tightening suddenly so that it was hard to get the words out. "Everybody thinks I'm a f-freak, and they're probably going to send me away. I _am_ a freak. And I feel like something's hunting me, so I'm probably crazy, too." The words tumbled over each other, and Jace shut his mouth, trying to make himself shut up. They'd hate him, too, and he couldn't stand the thought of hearing 'freak' from Ral's mind, or Elspeth's.

"They do _not_ think you're a freak," Elspeth said angrily. "You're not. You're perfectly normal."

Rubbing at his eyes, Jace gave her a disbelieving look. "You know I can read people's minds," he said. "I don't _think_ they think I'm a freak. I know they do."

Before Elspeth could respond, Ral butted in, one hand reaching out to ruffle Jace's hair rather roughly. "So you're a freak. So what? I am, too. I'm the only Muggle-born in Slytherin, and I'm the only Slytherin first-year. Fuck them. If anyone else is mean to you, I'll fight them, too."

"You probably shouldn't fight so many people, Ral," Elspeth said. "You'll just get in trouble."

"I haven't fought that many people this year," Ral protested uncomfortably. "It's only happened a few times."

"Sometimes I want to punch people, too," Elspeth said reprovingly. "I just don't think it's very constructive to actually do it."

"Yeah, yeah." Ral slumped back into a sitting position, then hit Jace's shoulder lightly. "What were you doing here anyway, Jace?"

"Sleeping," said Jace. A combination of Ral's speech and the food was starting to make him feel a little better, but he still had a slight sensation of wobbliness. He looked around. "Where is here?"

"I don't know," Ral said. "Kallist found you." The little cloud bobbed up and down, flickering brighter for a moment and then back to dimness.

" _Lumos_ ," Elspeth said, taking out her wand, and it flared to bright light as they watched. Jace winced and shielded his eyes, and they looked around at a small room whose pale stone walls were blackened with scorch marks. There was nothing in it but the pallet that Jace was sitting on.

"Where are we?" Elspeth asked, and the other two shrugged. "Oh, well." She sighed. "We'd better get back to our dorm rooms before _I_ get a detention as well."

She got to her feet and put out a hand for Jace to take, helping him to his feet. "Jace," she said slowly, as the three of them walked out of the little room with Kallist bobbing above their heads. "What did you mean, you feel like you're being _hunted_?"

He frowned. "I don't know," he said. "It's probably just too many nightmares, but a lot of times when Kallist and I are going to the Slytherin dorm, I feel like there's something in the darkness with me. I'm—I'm fine most of the time, but earlier, when I was coming down from the astronomy tower—I felt it again."

Elspeth put her hand on his shoulder. "I feel like that, too, sometimes," she said. "More trapped, I guess, but it's the same idea."

Jace wasn't entirely sure it was, but he didn't say anything else. Instead, he glanced back at the room they'd come out of, and his breath hitched fearfully. The door was gone.

* * *

Fidgeting uncomfortably, Jace tried to get himself to knock on the door. It seemed to take him longer every time he had one of these meetings. It wasn't that there was anything _wrong_ with Professor Potter, he thought uneasily, it was just that—he always felt like he was being judged, and he didn't like it. Besides, Professor Sinistra had probably told Professor Potter about his latest detention, and he didn't want to talk about it.

Finally, he managed to force himself to rap softly on the door, twice, promising himself that if there was no response he'd just leave. It took a minute or two, and he was just starting to get his hopes up, when there was the sound of shuffling footsteps, and the door opened.

Professor Potter looked almost as tired as Jace felt. There were huge, hollow circles beneath his eyes, and his hair was wild. He smiled quite kindly, and said, "Good evening, Jace." Jace wished he would go back to calling him 'Mr. Beleren', since everyone else did, but the professor seemed determined for them to be on first-name terms, even though they had said almost nothing to one another the entire time they had been meeting. Jace wasn't even entirely sure why they were _having_ meetings, unless it was another way to check up on him.

An old superstition of Jace's had resurfaced lately, no matter how much he tried to tell himself it was stupid. He couldn't remember anything before the day Hermione had found him in the wreckage of the old manor, but he knew that he had nightmares about it, and he knew that everyone else in the house had been dead. What if—what if that had been his fault? What if that was why they wouldn't let him take off the cloak? As Professor Potter ushered him into the cozy little room, Jace licked dry lips and almost hoped that he had just done something—really awful. It would explain why he was never allowed to take off the cloak, wouldn't it? If they were afraid that he'd—that he'd—

"Have a cup of tea." But he wouldn't. He wouldn't hurt his friends. He wouldn't have hurt—the memory danced tantalizingly in front of his mind, bringing with it a blurry female face, but it slipped away before he could grasp it. "Jace?"

Shaking his head and blinking, he realized Professor Potter was still holding out the cup of tea. "Oh! Sorry." He took it rapidly, wincing as he splattered some of the scalding liquid on his hand.

Professor Potter sat back thoughtfully, reached for the sugar and added three cubes to his cup of tea, tried it, pulled a face, and added another few cubes. "Jace," he said after a moment. "Is anything worrying you?"

Jace's heart gave a guilty thump, and he hastily put his tea to his lips so that he'd have a moment to think before he answered. Professor Potter didn't say anything else for a moment, just sipped at his tea and looked questioningly at him. He could just _ask_ him, couldn't he? Knowing why they had him wear the cloak would be better than wondering, surely?

"You can tell me," the professor said, very gently, almost as gentle as Professor Granger had been the times she'd visited when he was younger. He'd never told her then, except for once—the time he'd shown her the bruises. They had sent him to a different family after that. And it _had_ been better there. They hadn't hit him.

"Um," Jace began, setting his tea-cup down. His hand trembled, and the cup made a soft chinking noise against the saucer. And Professor Malfoy had been so nice about the time he'd actually peered into his head without asking—they _must_ want to help. "It's—it's about—"

Something fluttered in Jace's peripheral vision. A stab of pain shot through his head, and he had a sudden flash of a hooded figure standing in front of him, wand raised. He blinked, and it was gone. He started to relax—blinked again—and it was back. The warm, brightly-lit study seemed to peel away, leaving behind crumbling darkness and embers and ashes swirling in the air, suspended in a moment of time that seemed almost frozen.

Wand arm raised, mouth open, all he could do was stare around at the moment of time unfolding around him, as the sickly green light blossomed in front of him. Fear and pain flared like a Roman candle in his head as the light tore slowly through the white-robed figure in front of him. His heart shuddered slowly in his chest, and then he was falling to his knees, pink afterimages glowing in the air in front of him, and the robed figure stood over him, looking down impassively. Through it all, someone was screaming.

Hands on his shoulders, hands over his ears. The screaming was too loud, and his chest was burning. "Jace, can you hear me?"

He needed to breathe. Gulping in air, he coughed, and the screaming stopped abruptly. "Here, take this." Something was pressed into his hand, warm and slightly sticky. "Eat it. It'll make you feel better."

Automatically, he guided his hand to his mouth, and the strong, bittersweet taste of chocolate burst over his tongue. Slowly, the room reasserted itself around him. He was crouching beneath Professor Potter's table, one hand still pressed hard against his ear, the other at his mouth. The professor was squatting under the table with him, hands tentatively touching his shoulders.

Jace stared at him, words rattling around his head, but none of them making it to his lips. _I killed them, I don't know how, but I killed them_. They _were_ afraid of him, weren't they? Tears pressed at the backs of eyes, and he sniffed hard, trying to push them back.

"We'd better cut this meeting short," Professor Potter said. "Do you want to go back to your dorm? D'you have a friend who can walk you there? I'll get one of the house-elves to fetch them."

Pulling his hood more tightly down over his head, Jace managed to nod. "I guess…Ral or Elspeth would come," he said miserably into the familiar blue cloth.

"All right." Professor Potter got to his feet. "Er, if you're more comfortable under the table, you can wait there. I've—had flashbacks myself."

Gratefully, Jace pulled his knees into his chest. He did feel better in the smaller space formed by the table and the nearby armchair, and the chocolate was warming him up a bit. But he couldn't entirely shake the image of the faceless figure in its grey cloak staring at him with hidden eyes. Had it been a memory? It had been a lot clearer than most of the memories he'd managed to tap into before.

 _I should have died_ , Jace thought miserably. _I'm a freak, and I should have died_.


	8. Restless Dreams

**Chapter Seven: Restless Dreams**

Knock knock knock. Hermione sat up guiltily with an enormous sense of _deju vu_. How many times had she woken up to find herself slumped over papers she was supposed to be marking? At least twice in as many days, she was quite sure. Yawning, she called out a sleepy, "Come in!" and Draco Malfoy shoved the door open and leaned back against the wall.

He was in a foul mood, she could tell, his face the blank mask that always seemed to drop over him and cover his most extreme emotions. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Everything," Draco snapped explosively, which was angrier than Hermione had seen him since Ron had broken up with her. Chewing on her lip, she considered whether she could hand her papers back a day late. Well, it wasn't an O.W.L or N.E.W.T class, so she could probably get away with it.

"Sit down, then," she said briskly. "I'll make a cuppa."

"Thank you." The chair juddered against the floor as Draco flung himself into it, and Hermione, after a quick moment to tidy the collapsing stack of papers, headed over to her kettle. She muttered a quick spell to heat the water, added the tea leaves to the cups, and brought them back over to the desk to steep.

"Now," she said, pushing one cup across to Draco. "What is going on?"

Draco made a frustrated, growling noise as he stared morosely down into his cup. "Potter is impossible," he spat after another moment. "How do you make him listen to you?"

"I don't," Hermione said, with a sigh. "Honestly, he hasn't really opened up to me since the end of the war. I think he has some notion that if he asks anyone for help, he'll be a burden. I mean, when Ron and I broke up, he talked to me no matter what time of night it was, but when he and Ginny fell apart, I didn't hear anything."

Rolling his eyes, Draco sipped at his tea. "Then why did you send the Beleren boy to him?"

"I was hoping they'd be good for each other," Hermione said, with a sigh. "Neither of them seems to want to talk much, and they both had similar childhoods."

Draco sighed as well. "Well, I don't think it worked. I tried to give Potter some advice the other day, and it—didn't go terribly well."

"I'm not surprised." Draco was not particularly politic, Hermione thought, and she suspected that Harry still didn't know what to think of him. She, too, had been suspicious of him for several years, after all.

"This is important. Potter needs to realize that he's not the only one who's fucking traumatized."

"I don't think he thinks that, exactly," Hermione replied slowly. "I think he realizes it quite well, and he doesn't want to make it worse. For anyone else."

"Ugh, trust Potter to try to be inhumanly strong."

"We've all been guilty of trying to make ourselves seem less—"

Eyebrows quirking upward, Draco smiled humorlessly. "Broken? I don't think it's working. The children don't trust us, Hermione."

"Of course they trust us. And that's why Harry thinks he needs to seem strong. It's why I want to seem strong. All of the children have been so badly affected by the war, and they need—"

"They need to see that it's _all right_ to not be all right," Draco interjected viciously. "They don't need to see you and Potter and the rest of the teachers acting as if nothing has changed. It _has_ changed. We have an entire generation of students who lived through a bloody _war_."

Hermione blinked and sipped at her tea. She hadn't really thought of it that way. She supposed she had been aiming for a certain kind of normalcy for the children. That was what you did, wasn't it? Made everything normal so they could grow up normally. But would they be able to grow up normally? Hogwarts wasn't an island, after all. They could still see the effects of the war: most of them had lived through it. In some sense, the most normal child who had entered the school this year was their single Muggle-born—and "normal" was not a very appropriate term to use when describing Ral Zarek.

"I suppose you have a point," she said slowly. "But I don't think we want to walk around letting the students see us have panic attacks, after all. Even if we do still have them—oh, I don't know." She shivered and pressed a hand to her eyes. "I just wish we could protect them," she said helplessly.

"Unfortunately, we can't." Draco put out a hand but didn't quite touch her. He had made quite a habit of not touching her since Ron had accused the two of them of being involved—it still stung that Ron hadn't believed her denials. She had, surprisingly, become very close to Draco, as the two of them tried to grapple with the reduced staff and the difficulty of pulling together lessons at short notice for a lethargic, unfocused student body, but even if she _had_ been attracted to Draco, she wouldn't have acted on it when she was in a relationship with somebody else.

"How are the different houses doing?" she asked, slightly changing the subject.

"Oh, thank you, yes, let's talk about the other thing that's driving me crazy," Draco groaned.

She had to laugh. "I'm sorry," she said. "The Sorting Hat did try, but it had so many people begging not to be in Slytherin…"

"I have no doubt," Draco replied icily. "There is no inter-house companionship. The Slytherins keep to themselves, and the other three houses are more than happy to let them do so. Except…"

"Except?"

"The first-years, haven't you noticed? There's a growing group of them centered around Mr. Beleren, Ms. Tirel, and Mr. Zarek. They don't seem to care much about house boundaries, so that's hopeful."

"How is Mr. Zarek doing?" Hermione asked. "He's enjoying his one-on-one lessons, but he does seem a little subdued."

"He's the only first-year in his house, which would be bad enough if he _weren't_ Muggle-born," groaned Draco. "I've talked to some of the prefects, but no one has been exactly nasty to him. They simply don't trust or include him in anything."

Hermioned warmed her hands on her teacup. "I'll talk to Harry," she sighed. "Maybe between us, we can come up with a plan to improve matters."

Slumping back in the chair, Draco pulled a face. "Good luck," he said softly.

* * *

"Wrong color again. _Fuck_." Ral jabbed his wand frustratedly at Kallist, who shot a surprised and oddly comforting bolt of lightning at the cauldron in front of Ral and Jace. "I don't get what we're doing wrong. We followed all the directions. What are we _missing_?"

Beside him, Jace chewed on a knuckle, and Chandra shrugged, exchanging a nonplussed look with Gideon. "Probably one of the steps in the middle," Jace said at last. "We might not have added the rose petals fast enough. Or we didn't grate the mint properly. We don't have the kind of grater either of the books talks about."

"Do you really think a silver knife is different from a silver grater?" Ral demanded, then groaned. "Don't answer that, it probably is somehow. Maybe it warps the magic field around it differently."

"If we could figure out how they're different, maybe we could fix it," Jace suggested. "There's probably something about it in the library."

"Yeah, I guess we're at a dead end for today," Chandra said with a yawn. "I'm sick of this for now, anyway. C'mon, Gideon, let's go flying."

The two Gryffindors headed for the door. Ral slumped back against the table. They'd been trying to get the Dreamless Sleep potion to work properly for over a week now, and it was really starting to frustrate him. "Jace, let's practice mind stuff," he said abruptly. It had been a few days since the incident in the astronomy tower; Jace had to be over it by now. Things had been going so well until then, too.

"We should clean up the ingredients," Jace said.

"We can make it a game," Ral coaxed. "I'll clean it up if you tell me what to put away next."

"Okay," Jace said. "Start by cleaning the cauldron."

Ral punched him in the shoulder. "I meant mentally," he said. "Obviously."

"Ral…" Jace shifted nervously. "I really don't think I should."

"Oh, come on. Professor Sinistra isn't going to find out. The professors never come into the common rooms."

Jace put a hand to his head. "That's not really the point," he said quietly. "I could—I could hurt you."

"Okay?" Ral gave him a puzzled look. "I get hurt a lot, in case you hadn't noticed."

"No, I mean I could really—" Jace took a deep breath. "I just don't think it's a good idea, okay?"

"We haven't had any problems till now," Ral said impatiently. "You're just being dumb, Jace. Besides, how are we going to ever figure out Bottled Dreams without you? We can't even get our Dreamless Sleep stuff to work."

"Maybe we should just wait until we learn it in class," Jace said.

"But you still have nightmares."

"Maybe that's just the way things _are_ , Ral. Maybe that's how they're supposed to be."

Ral blinked at him in surprise. Jace's voice had gone almost dead. "Bullshit," he said. "Why would you even say that?"

"Just—" Above them, Kallist's flickering was becoming more erratic, and he bobbed up and down nervously. Jace's voice broke as he tried to continue. "I just don't want to hurt you, Ral. Is that so weird?"

"Kind of! That's like saying 'I don't want to play chess because a troll might attack'. The two things don't have anything to do with one another!"

Jace glared at him. "Everyone thinks I'm a freak, Ral. They're scared of me taking off my cloak."

Ral rolled his eyes. "No, they're not. They're just being teachers. They think everything is dangerous."

"You really think so?"

"Oh my god. Yeah, I think so."

"You promise you'll tell me if anything hurts?"

" _Yes_ , okay, I promise."

Taking a deep breath, Jace slowly reached for the clasp of his cloak and then slipped it off in one fluid motion. He winced and put a hand to his head. "It's so loud," he whispered miserably.

"I can't hear you, are you in my head?" Ral asked. Usually, he knew when Jace was reading his mind, because he could feel a soft touch like mental fingers poking at him. It wasn't exactly uncomfortable, just odd.

"Just a—" – _second_. He was barely audible, the word flickering quickly through Ral's head, almost as faint as it had been the first time they'd tried this.

"Stop worrying so much," Ral sighed, then repeated the statement mentally, but he couldn't tell if Jace had gotten it the second time.

Jace shut his eyes, leaning forward, his hands bunching in the fabric of the discarded cloak. _Can't—not working—_

"Yeah, you can. You did it before. Just—"

"Jace?" Elspeth called into the common room softly. "Kiora is looking for you. She says Professor Potter wants to talk to you."

The tentative mental connection vanished, and Jace hastily shrugged his cloak back on. "Okay," he said. "Did she say why?"

Elspeth stuck her head in and shook it. "No," she said. "Sorry."

Ral sighed in irritation. "I'll clean up," he said. "You go on, Jace."

His friend paused for a moment, shuffling his feet, then trudged toward the door. "I'll, um, be back soon," he said, his voice suddenly quiet again. Ral glanced after him. He should be over the astronomy tower stuff by now, shouldn't he? He bounced back from his nightmares pretty fast most of the time. Ugh. He didn't know. Jace should have a therapist or something, probably, but that didn't seem to be a thing here in Magical Wizarding World, Ral thought morosely.

"Do you need help?" Elspeth asked, as Kallist floated over Ral's head and started to rain. He glanced upward.

"Yeah, I know, Kallist. I guess I'm kind of worried, too."

He and Elspeth had almost finished cleaning up the potion-making apparatus when Jace got back. He looked pale and drawn, hunching over in his cloak.

"Jace, are you all right?" Elspeth asked, and he shrugged, sinking onto the couch listlessly and curling up with his cloak pulled tightly around him. "Jace?"

Ral glanced over at her, and the two of them went over to sit beside him. "Go away," Jace said, his voice muffled from inside his cloak.

"Jace, what the hell?" Ral demanded. "You were fine. Come on." He reached out to ruffle his friend's hair, but Jace caught his wrist.

"Leave me alone," he said tiredly. "I'm dangerous."

"No, you're not," Elspeth said, kindly, which was nicer than what Ral had been going to say.

"Professor Potter told me I was," Jace said tiredly. "Just go away."

Elspeth seemed about to say something else, but Ral got there first this time. "Fine," he snapped. "You're being stupid and you won't listen to us, but you'll listen to your stupid professor no matter what bullshit he spouts, so fine. Just stay here and mope, if that's what you want to do. I'm going back to my dorm."

Kallist darted back and forth from him to Jace as Ral stomped towards the stairs, but he slammed the door behind him and didn't look back.

* * *

Jace woke with a shuddering gasp, and his feet were moving toward the edge of his bed before he remembered what had happened the previous day. He couldn't go to Ral tonight, could he? He flung himself back into bed and drew his knees into his chest. He didn't deserve to go to Ral. Determinedly, he shut his eyes, trying to slow his breathing and time it with the constant flickers of lightning that ran through Kallist. It didn't really work. After a minute, he started holding his breath. Maybe he could hold it long enough to just pass out. Anything to make the horrible prickling sensation on the back of his neck go away, and the images he knew lurked just behind his eyes.

His heart skipped a beat, and Jace sobbed and turned over quickly, digging his nails into his hand. He'd felt his heart stop in his dreams, felt it stop in the midst of a green wind and a pain in his chest. He turned over again, lying flat on his back, muscles still tense and stiff. _Go to sleep_ , he told himself, but he didn't want to go back to sleep.

Cold moisture began to drip onto his face, and he opened his eyes again. "Kallist," he moaned softly. "Don't do that." He pulled the pillow over his head, but the rain soaked down the back of his neck anyway. After several minutes of shivering from cold and fear, he swung his legs over the side of his bed again. He'd go to Ral anyway. Maybe he'd be able to sleep on the floor of the Slytherin dorm.

Wrapping his cloak securely around himself, he grabbed his wand and headed out of the dorm room, accompanied by Kallist. He paused in the common room for a minute to caution Kallist to be especially quiet, took a deep breath, and then slipped out into the darkness.

On previous nights, he'd taken his cloak off to make sure he could avoid Mr. Filch, or any prefects who happened to be patrolling late, but he couldn't do that tonight. Well, he knew Filch's routes pretty well at this point. Jace bit his lip. His heart was pounding so hard he thought it was going to burst out of his chest, and he pressed a hand to his mouth to try and keep his breathing quieter. Something about doing that, though, just made him feel worse, and he stopped right away.

Jace and Kallist crept up the stairs from the common room, paused inside the stairwell and peeked out through the keyhole. As soon as he was sure that the corridor was empty, Jace stole out and began to run for the Slytherin dorm as fast as he could. As soon as he started, he knew it had been a mistake, because he wasn't going to be able to stop. There was something behind him, he was sure of it. He couldn't look back—wouldn't look back. The breath sobbed in his lungs, and Kallist juddered along above him.

He turned into the corridor above the Slytherin dungeon, and tripped on the hem of his cloak, falling heavily into the wall. He managed to pull himself back upright, but not before he glanced back over his shoulder, and a soft squeak burst out of his throat. There was something behind him.

He got a vague, blurred glimpse of a hooded figure before he was up and running again, even faster than before. His feet pounded against the ground, and there was a roaring in his ears, not from voices speaking this time, just a horrible static that went on and on. At every step, he expected the thing to put its hand on his shoulder, expected that if he turned the corner it would be standing there in mid-air.

Slamming down the stairs into the dungeon, he flung himself against the hidden passage, gabbling out the password, his tongue almost tripping over itself. For one heart-stopping moment, he thought he'd gotten it wrong—they'd changed it, or he'd just forgotten—and then the dark passage was in front of him, beckoning him onward. Sobbing, he stumbled down it and into the bedroom, dropping to his knees beside Ral's bed, trying to gasp in enough air to calm his racing heart.

"Jace?" Ral's voice mumbled sleepily from the bed. "Where are you?"

Kallist swooped between the four-poster curtains as Jace collapsed backward against the bed, trembling. "Sorry," he whispered, poking his head up over the edge. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"Get into bed, idiot."

Jace nearly swallowed his tongue. "I—thought you were mad at me."

"I am mad at you. You're taking forever to get into bed, and I'm tired."

Thoughts swirling and beating at his tired brain, Jace couldn't muster another protest. With a sound halfway between a groan and a sob, he pulled himself up onto the side of the bed, tucked his feet in, and slid under the covers. Ral's hand reached out and patted his head sleepily.

* * *

Late at night, the corridors were silent and empty. Draco found it oddly calming to be out after hours, now that he was a professor and didn't have to skulk around. The place was empty, but he'd lived at Hogwarts for so long now that it was a companionable sort of emptiness. Still, he had a fair amount of work to do and might not have felt like going on a midnight patrol if Filch hadn't asked him to do so. Apparently, he suspected some of the students were sneaking out after lights out, but he hadn't been able to catch them.

"Must be some of them fifth or sixth years," Filch had grumbled to him. "If they're evading me and Mrs. Norris, well, they must have some solid magic at their disposal." Although Draco had no particular fondness for the caretaker, he had to admit that it seemed likely, especially if Filch was correct, and this disobedience had been going on for a while.

As he padded silently down the stairway toward the Slytherin dungeon in the hopes of catching someone leaving—it was still fairly early—Draco caught sight of a fragment of blue whipping around a corner at the bottom. Both his eyebrows went up. He hadn't expected to see someone going _toward_ a dormitory. Quickening his pace slightly, he slipped down the spiral staircase under cover of his Disillusionment Charm, reaching the floor below just in time to see the passageway into the dormitory disappear.

Draco paused for a few minutes outside, waiting until the children inside were settled and unlikely to be on their guard, and then murmured the password and tiptoed in. To his mild surprise, nothing unusual appeared to be happening. The common room was empty, and the dormitory was dark and quiet. Puzzled, he drew the curtains back around the nearest four-poster and muttered, " _Lumos minima_." A tiny, dim light flared up at the end of his wand, and illuminated—not just a single form in the bed, but two boys sleeping back to back.

The beds in the dormitory were one-size-fits-all, so perhaps it wasn't surprising that the two tiny first-years were both able to fit. Jace's blue hood had fallen back, exposing his pale, thin face and the huge, dark circles beneath his closed eyes, but he was sleeping peacefully, fetched up against Ral's back like a bird taking shelter from a storm. Draco stared for a moment longer, then let the curtain fall and took a step back.

As he continued on his tour of the school, the only students he found out of place were first-years, here and there, sharing beds as Ral and Jace had been doing. Upon reaching the Gryffindor common room, in fact, he nearly tripped over three students collapsed into a heap on a pile of blankets. Raising his tiny light in amusement, he saw that Gideon Jura was lying with his head back against the couch, while tiny Chandra Nalaar slept in the crook of his arm, and the Scottish girl, Tirel, lay splayed across both their legs.

As he stared at them, her eyes opened, large and dark and suddenly fearful, catching his gaze. She sat upright with a gasp as she saw him, glancing from side to side as if trying to figure out what to say. Draco put a finger to his lips, nodding at Chandra and Gideon. "Go back to sleep," he mouthed, holding his wand high so that she could see his face.

He had taken note of Tirel in Potions class at times—she often worked with Zarek and Beleren. She was usually a very solemn child, but occasionally he caught sight of her smiling or giggling and her whole face changed. It changed now; her eyes scrunched up as the grin spread across her face. She gave him a brilliant nod, yawned, and settled back down onto the floor.

As Draco tiptoed out, he made a mental note to tell the house-elves to deliver more pillows to the Gryffindor common room, and maybe a blanket or two.


	9. Followed Footsteps

**Chapter Eight: Followed Footsteps**

Jace sighed sleepily and leaned back against the couch cushions. Still no luck with the Dreamless Sleep potion, so he was tired. He was used to it, and it wouldn't be so frustrating, except whenever he had a particularly bad night, he tended to make mistakes, and mistakes made him lose house points. So did swearing, which he sometimes did accidentally around teachers or prefects, due primarily to associating with Ral.

"You doing all right?" Ral asked, looking up from the floor, where he was kneeling over several pieces of wire and what Jace recognized as an electric light-bulb. He wasn't sure where Ral had gotten it, but when they weren't reading up on potions or trying them out these days, Ral was tinkering with Muggle technology, trying to see if he could get it to work. He'd exploded a lot of light-bulbs in the last few days, and Jace could tell he was trying to be very careful with this most recent one. Kallist hovered companionably in the air above both of them.

"Fine," Jace yawned. He still wasn't planning on taking his cloak off again anytime soon, but so far nothing terrible had happened as long as he kept it on. Professor Potter hadn't said anything more about it being dangerous, and none of the teachers had chided him about it, at least. He almost felt a little embarrassed about how scared he'd been. It was one thing to be scared at night, for the nightmares to have convinced you that you'd done horrible things and that something was coming after you because of it, but it was silly to think like that during the day, with the sun shining brightly into the Hufflepuff common room.

"Wingardium leviosa," Elspeth muttered, pointing at one of the pillows with her wand. They'd learned the charm in class yesterday, and Elspeth was the only one of them who actually practiced her homework ahead of time. The pillow rose, wobbled, then fell onto Jace's head. He stared for a moment, then grinned, picked it up, and flung it back at her.

"What are you do—mph!" Ral had looked up just in time to take another pillow to the face. "Oh, I am going to get you for that," he grinned. "Wing—wing-guard—uh—"

"Wingardium leviosa!" Jace pointed his wand at Kallist, and the startled cloud zoomed down to swirl through Ral's face, leaving him wet-haired and startled. Then he dove for Jace.

They had been tussling for several minutes when one of the pillows got away from Ral and soared across the room to land on the head of one of the third-years who was studying in the common room. She sat up with a glance, her face freezing into an expression of distaste as she spotted Ral.

"Sorry!" Elspeth called. "We'll be more careful!"

Jace was turning back to the game, a little shamefaced, when he realized that the third-year was heading in their general direction with two of her friends. They stopped in front of the couch. "Slytherin," said the girl who'd been hit in the head with a pillow.

Ral went very still. Jace found himself reaching out and putting a hand on Ral's shoulder. The other boy glanced up at him sharply, then shrugged and looked away.

"You don't belong here," the third-year said sharply. "Leave."

"There's no rules against being in someone else's common room," Elspeth pointed out, frowning.

"Leave Ral alone," Jace put in, but he said it so quietly he wasn't sure if any of them had heard him.

"He doesn't belong," the girl said, and her two friends nodded. "He's not a Hufflepuff, and he keeps getting you two into trouble. We've lost too many points this year because of him."

Ral's shoulders tightened. "I'm not going anywhere." His voice was soft and firm, not even terribly angry.

"Yes, you are. You're going to leave our housemates alone," the third-year said.

A shrug rippled through the muscles beneath Jace's hand. "I'm not breaking any rules," said Ral. "You can't make me leave."

"Really." She put her hands on her hips. "You're always getting your friends into trouble and you teach them the dumbest things."

"Can you just leave us alone now?" Elspeth broke in again. "Look—Ral, Jace, maybe we should go somewhere else for now."

"We're not doing anything against the rules," Ral repeated stubbornly. "We don't have to go anywhere." Jace looked over at Elspeth. He didn't want to leave either, didn't want the third-years to feel as if they'd won. Besides, who cared if they were Hufflepuffs and Ral was a Slytherin? He didn't want Ral to feel left out.

"We don't have to go anywhere," Jace echoed, finally.

"You are a stupid child who thinks that crazy Muggle tools are better than magic," said the third-year, and her friends nodded. "They don't even work." She gestured with her toe at the light-bulb on the floor.

"Yes, they do," Ral gritted out, and the third-year drew back her foot as if she were about to kick the bulb.

 _Oh no_ , Jace thought briefly, and then Ral was leaping up, wand still in his hand. One of the third years called, " _Expelliarmus_!" but Ral hadn't even been going to cast a spell, a fact which became abundantly clear when he threw himself at the middle third-year and landed a punch solidly in her face. She was too startled to react, and her wand clattered to the floor, but her two friends began to raise their wands.

"Expelliarmus!" Jace shouted as Elspeth dove to the right, and a moment later none of the third-years were armed. The girl in the middle who had started the whole thing had gone down under Ral's sudden weight, and now she was yelling at him to get off and flailing wildly, while he hit out almost as wildly.

"Ral!" Elspeth and Jace grabbed for his arms simultaneously, and one wild blow caught Jace right between the eyes. He went over backwards with a gasp, tears springing to his eyes. The noise of a scuffle stopped right away, and then Ral was there, bending over him.

"Fuck, are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Jace said, though he was still a little dizzy.

"What is going on over here?" Jace let Ral and Elspeth pull him up onto the couch, and all three of them looked up as one of the sixth-year prefects, whose name was Sorin, hurried over.

The girl Ral had hit sat up, red-faced and furious. "He _punched_ me," she snarled. "We weren't doing anything and he just dove at me."

"Yes, you were," Ral said breathlessly. "You fucking—"

"Zarek!" snapped Sorin. "Language! This kind of behavior is _not_ acceptable. If this happens again, you won't be allowed back into our common room. Fifty points from Slytherin, and detention."

"That's not fair!" This time it was Elspeth who spoke, rising angrily from the couch to step in front of both of her friends. "Ral shouldn't have jumped her, but she started it. She—"

"That's enough, Tirel," Sorin interrupted. "You're a Hufflepuff. I'd like to see a little house solidarity here."

Jace saw Elspeth's shoulders tighten and her chin rise. "No," she said suddenly. "That's really unfair. Really—really _fucking_ unfair."

Sorin's lips thinned angrily. "Detention for you, too, Miss Tirel."

"Aren't you going to dock Hufflepuff points?" Elspeth asked angrily.

"No, Slytherin lost points for Mr. Zarek's fight, not his language."

During the conversation, Jace had been struggling with himself. Now, finally, he managed to get to his feet as well. "Well, it is unfair," he said, pushing the words past his mouth quickly so he didn't have to think about them. "Um. Fuck."

Sorin sighed. "Detention for you, too, Mr. Beleren," he said, and walked away. The three third-years followed, glancing back over their shoulder at Jace, Ral, and Elspeth. Kallist, who had taken off for the ceiling at the first sign of trouble, began to hover back downward rather gingerly, and Jace put his hand back on Ral's shoulder. The other boy didn't seem aware of it, as he knelt on the floor and began to gently collect the shards of glass from the light-bulb, which must have broken sometime during the fray.

"So, detention," he said, a little tiredly. "Well, at least that's nothing new."

* * *

Scrubbing pots. Miles and miles of pots to be scrubbed. Jace sighed and stared upward. This was too many pots, especially to do without magic. "This is going to take a while," he said, a little helplessly.

Next to him, Ral stiffened angrily. "You didn't have to stand up for me," he snapped. "I'll do the pots if you two want."

"Oh, shut up, Ral," Jace said. "It's not your fault that third-year was awful to you."

"Well, you shouldn't have punched her," Elspeth said practically. "But just because it made it easier for her to get you in trouble. She deserved it. Here, Ral, you and Jace wash, and I'll dry. I have a lot of younger siblings, so I have a lot of practice. I'll be fast at it."

She pushed a sponge at each of them and took up a position by their side. Jace sighed and reached for the first cauldron. He wondered if this was everyone's cauldron from today's lessons, or even from the last week.

They washed in silence for a while before Elspeth spoke again. "I feel like a lot of the school is kind of messed up," she said, softly. "I mean, Chandra and Gideon were complaining that the Gryffindors didn't want the Hufflepuffs in their common room, because they didn't think we deserved it or something? So it's not just you being a Slytherin or anything, Ral."

Ral slammed a particularly large cauldron down into the bottom of the sink. "Didn't _deserve_ it? Why?"

"Something about Gryffindor being the house the Golden Trio came from. You know, Professor Potter, Professor Granger, and Ron Weasley."

"But everyone fought Voldemort," Ral said crossly. "That's so stupid."

"Yeah," Elspeth agreed. "I don't really get it either."

"Kiora stopped me the other day in the hall and said it was a shame I wasn't a Ravenclaw," Jace put in. "Because I was so smart, she said? I mean. It would be fine to be a Ravenclaw, it's just—why does it _matter_ so much?"

"Don't ask me, it's your stupid wizarding world," Ral grumbled. "The Slytherins don't like me, either. Maybe because I'm the only first-year or because I'm a _mudblood_."

Elspeth frowned, receiving a small but heavy cast-iron pot from Jace. "Nissa hasn't said anything like that again, has she?"

Ral shook his head. "No. No one has. I'm just—" he growled. "Oh great, we're almost out of soap."

"Do you want me to get more?" Elspeth offered, but Ral chucked the rag he'd been using down into the sink.

"I'll do it," he said. "I need a walk anyway."

It was almost as fast with two people, just because Jace and Ral weren't getting in each other's way anymore. The work was pretty mindless, and Jace was starting to get good at getting one cauldron to Elspeth just after she'd finished drying the previous one, until he actually came to the end of the soap and looked up, puzzled. "Do you know where Ral went?" he asked Elspeth, who paused in the middle of her drying and looked up as well.

"I thought he would just go to the kitchens," she said. "The house elves should have given him soap and sent him right back, but it's been longer than that."

Jace thought of the hooded figure he'd glimpsed following him in the night. "We should go check on him," he said suddenly. "Just in case."

"All right," Elspeth agreed, hanging up the towel. Jace put the sponge down and rinsed off his hands quickly, and the two of them headed out the door, where they nearly tripped over Ral.

He was slumped over a bucket with the soap in it, head hanging between his knees, one hand on the back of his neck. He barely glanced up as Jace and Elspeth came out of the door.

"Ral?" Jace said uncertainly. "Are you okay?" From overhead, Kallist swooped down to hover, close and concerned, over his creator's head.

When Ral finally did look up, Jace saw with a shock that his eyes were red-rimmed and his nose was puffy. "I met Professor Granger," he bit out. "She said I was—" Ral sniffed. "She said if I didn't—shape up—next time I got a detention, they'd expel me."

"What?" Elspeth echoed. "That doesn't make any sense!"

"I don't care," Ral responded tightly. "Stupid fucking school. I'll just go to a proper high school. Magic's not important anyway."

Words. Jace needed to find some words, but there weren't any, nothing but blank incomprehension and bewildered terror beating at the back of his eyes. Ral couldn't go. Ral couldn't—he slid down the wall until he was sitting next to the other boy.

"I'll go talk to her," Elspeth said. "You two wait here. There's been a mistake, somehow. It's going to be fine. I'll _make_ it be fine." And she was gone.

Jace didn't even know which door she'd taken. He was too busy trying to deal with a sudden shortness of breath. Everything was cold and damp; Kallist was trickling down water above them again. Needing something solid in a world that suddenly felt as if it were rocking back and forth like a storm-tossed boat, Jace reached for Ral's hand, but halted before he'd done more than hooked one finger into the sleeve of his friend's robes. After a moment, Ral's hand reached out and seized his wrist, not moving, just holding on tightly. Jace shifted slightly closer, and Kallist hovered down even more until Jace could feel the cool breath of mist on his forehead.

He concentrated on breathing and on the feeling of Ral's hand on his wrist, the way he sometimes concentrated on the warmth of the other boy at his back during the night, and he stared up at Kallist and counted lightning strikes. He'd made it up to eight hundred and seventeen when Elspeth came back. Professor Granger was with her.

"Jace, Ral," she said, the use of his first name enough to drag Jace's head up. "Are you all right?"

Ral's grip tightened on Jace's wrist. "I'm fine," he said coolly.

"Ms. Tirel was saying—" Professor Granger paused for a moment, frowning, the worried look that Jace was used to seeing on her face whenever she had visited him as a child growing stronger. "Well, that you seemed to think that I had said you were in trouble?"

The lightning inside Kallist grew stronger, and for the first time, Jace wondered how much connection his cloud retained with his friend. Ral shrugged, shoulders moving tightly up and down.

Professor Granger sighed. "I am disappointed in you for fighting," she said, softly. "And I do wish you'd try harder to moderate your language. But you're a motivated, intelligent student, and you have many qualities that make Hogwarts a better place. You certainly aren't at risk of being asked to leave."

At that, Ral's head whipped up. "Then why did you say—" he cut himself off.

"Why did I say what?" Professor Granger asked, giving him a puzzled expression.

"Nothing," Ral replied slowly. "I guess I had—a nightmare. Sorry."

There was a long pause, and Jace felt a chill creep up his spine. If Professor Granger was telling the truth—but Ral had really seen her—then why? He wouldn't have fallen asleep on his way to get soap. Could it be—Jace's fault? He'd been inside Ral's head. Had he messed something up while he was in there?

"Would you three like to finish your detention another day?" Professor Granger asked. "You all seem—tired."

"We'll be fine," Ral said, dropping Jace's wrist.

"Thank you," Elspeth added, as Ral got to his feet, Kallist floating up with him.

"Did you make that?" Professor Granger asked with interest, indicating Kallist.

"Um," said Ral. "Yeah."

"Interesting." She reached out with her wand, and Kallist spat lightning and fled down to Jace's shoulder, raining uncontrollably. "Oh!" Professor Granger exclaimed. "I—does it _understand_ what I'm doing?"

Ral shrugged evasively. "It's just an experiment, Professor," he said guardedly. Professor Granger opened her mouth as if she were going to say something else, got a thoughtful look on her face, and closed it again.

"Of course," she said. "Well, if you're all sure that you're feeling all right, maybe you'd better get back to your detention."

"Yes, Professor," Ral replied immediately. "Come on, Jace." Reluctantly, Jace got to his feet. He wanted to say something, but he wasn't quite sure what, and, in the end, he simply followed Ral and Elspeth back into the Potions classroom. Immediately, Ral went back over to the sink and started washing. They worked in silence for several minutes, and each time, Jace tried to think of a way to ask if Ral's head was feeling all right that wouldn't get him punched. In the end, he didn't say anything, though. As long as he just stayed out of Ral's head from now on, it would be all right. It had to be.

* * *

Jace hated the feeling of blindness, of stumbling through darkened corridors without being able to see where he was going, but he couldn't do anything about it. Not now. Not when he didn't dare take his cloak off, for fear of what he might do, or what he might already have done. He wrapped his arms around himself miserably, and Kallist hovered down lower against his head.

 _You don't have to go far_ , he reminded himself, because he was having trouble not just freezing in place. Just two more corridors and down a single flight of stairs. He wouldn't see the hooded figure again. It had probably just been a figment of his imagination.

He stared down at his feet as he trudged forward, staring at the stones beneath them. In the flickering glow above his head, the tiny little smudges and indentations on them were clear, and he was beginning to know the patterns, to know where he had to step when. He knew Filch's routine by now, and could evade him effortlessly even with his cloak on. It was almost a dance, Jace thought, his spirits starting to lighten, a dance through the darkness toward his best friend.

After a few minutes, he started to become aware of a nagging sensation of something—wrong. He frowned, pausing for an instant. Kallist bobbed inquiringly in the air above him, and Jace started forward again, slower this time. There was nothing odd about the ground in front of him, it wasn't that. He didn't have his cloak off, so he wasn't reading anything strange—it was just—he paused again, suddenly. There was a soft echo from behind him, which died away immediately.

Jace swallowed, started forward again—and now he could hear it, the echoing pat-pat-pat that might be just his imagination. He couldn't be certain, though when he stopped again, it seemed to go on for a moment longer than an echo should have. Hands trembling, clutched tight in the folds of his cloak, Jace strained his ears, but he heard nothing but silence. But he knew he'd heard it. Another step, and the same soft sound came again. Something was following him.

"Kallist," he whispered as softly as he could. "Is there s-something behind me?" He couldn't look back. His heart was thumping so hard he was afraid it might jump out of his chest. There was a moment of dark silence, and then Kallist flashed, brightly, once. _Yes_.

Jace's breath caught in his throat, and then he was running, breath sobbing through his lungs. Stones flashed by, and he must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, because he no longer recognized the markings. Oh, god. He couldn't be lost. He needed to get to Ral—he needed to get somewhere that wasn't the empty, open corridor, needed to—

Glancing frantically back and forth, he randomly chose the right corridor and pelted down it, but that was a mistake, because the curving staircase he came to went up instead of down, and he still didn't know where he was. And he could hear the footsteps behind him, getting faster and louder as he ran. Jace whimpered and ran on.

By the time he'd made it to the top of the stairs, his breath was like a knife in his lungs, and he could barely make his feet move, but he was still being driven onwards, then—tug on his shoulder, foot tangled in his cloak, and he was going down. He tried to get his hands out to catch himself, but they were also caught in the folds of his cloak, and he slammed into the stairs, lightning bolts of pain shooting through his chest and his forehead. His lungs contracted; he tried to suck in air, and nothing happened. Frantically, Jace clutched at his chest, but there was nothing but pain, his lungs refused to contract, and everything was silent except for the sound of footsteps behind him. Ahead of him? There were footsteps everywhere, and Jace squeezed his eyes shut, shuddering around the arm he had pressed across his chest. _You deserve this_ , whispered a little voice in the back of his mind.

When the hand fell onto his shoulder, the beat of his heart seemed to expand into his ears, one, two, _onetwothree_ , and colored spots swirled inward into his vision. He heard Kallist sparking above him, but the sound was faint and far away, and Jace wondered if this was what dying was like, trapped in a darkness that pressed inwards from all sides until nothing was left.


	10. Dramatic Rescue

**Chapter Nine: Dramatic Rescue**

It was cold. Ral rubbed at his eyes, shivering, trying to figure out why he was so chilly. Wriggling backward, he tried to find the warmth of Jace's back, but he encountered nothing but cold sheets, followed by the edge of the bed. Blinking and yawning, Ral dragged his eyes open in confusion. The early morning light, pale and green-tinted after traveling through the lake, was filtering into his bed, but the bed was empty. Where was Jace?

Feeling a faint chill that he told himself was just because the bed was cold, Ral pulled himself into a sitting position. The little space of his bed within the green curtains seemed so empty.

"Zarek?" someone called. One of the older Slytherins. "You getting up? You'll be late for breakfast if you sleep any longer." Ral was a little surprised that they'd noticed, but then he usually woke pretty early when Kallist got them up to make sure no one would catch Jace in here. So the others in the dorm must be used to his curtains being pulled back and him making his bed by the time they started to get up.

"I'm coming," he called back. Judging from the light and the sounds of movement in the dorm, he didn't have a lot of time. He stripped quickly and pulled on his robe, took a few minutes to splash water on his face in the bathroom, and then met up with the rest of the Slytherins as they headed toward the dining hall en masse.

As soon as they entered, he looked over at the Hufflepuff table. No Jace. Ral sought Elspeth, wondering if the two of them were late, but no—there she was, looking back up at him. Their eyes met. _Is he with you?_ Elspeth mouthed, and Ral shook his head, the nagging chill in his stomach getting more pronounced. Oh, fuck it. He didn't need to eat with the Slytherins, and who cared if the Hufflepuffs got angry?

He was across the dining hall in a few seconds. "When's the last time you saw him?" he asked Elspeth, and she shrugged helplessly.

"He went to bed a little early last night," she said. "He took Kallist with him. But he seemed fine. I don't—should we ask the teachers?"

Ral chewed on his lip. He was about to sigh and say "yes" when Professor Granger and Professor Potter hurried into the dining hall and headed over to the Headmistress. The three of them conferred for a moment, and then Professor McGonagall got to her feet and called for silence.

"I have just heard something quite serious," she said in her most worried-sounding voice. "Mr. Beleren is in the hospital wing, after Professor Potter found him walking around the corridors after hours. I am sure he will be fine, but in the meantime, it has come to my attention that a number of you have been moving about after lights' out. This is not acceptable—not getting enough sleep can negatively impact your schoolwork, and wandering the corridors after dark can also be somewhat hazardous. From now on, the prefects and professors will be doing rounds later into the evening, and the repercussions will be serious for anyone caught out of their rooms past curfew."

A babble of voices broke out as everyone turned to their neighbor and started either speculating about who had been sneaking out or—in the case of the Sleep Club—panicking.

"Do you think we'll be in trouble?" Nissa asked, and Ral put his head down on the table, because things really couldn't get much worse.

Elspeth sighed. "I was finally sleeping well," she said in a small voice, and she sounded more vulnerable than Ral had ever heard her. He reached out and put a careful hand on her shoulder, not really sure if that would help or if it was a good idea, but she didn't shake him off. She sniffed, shoulders moving up and down. "I hope Jace is all right," she said, softly. "I—I wonder what happened."

"I should've started going to him," Ral said abruptly. "I mean, he's the one who had all the nightmares and stuff, I should've—this shouldn't have happened."

"It's not your fault," Elspeth said solidly. "We should—we should ask Professor Malfoy. I bet he would try to help."

Ral shook his head. "None of them are going to help," he said dismissively. "Besides, Professor Malfoy's sick, remember? Our last Potions class was cancelled. Anyways, Jace will be fine. He'll be back in a day or two." Of course he would. They'd figure out a way to get around the recent prohibition. Everyone would start getting sleep again. It would be fine.

"Elspeth, are you going to be okay?" Gideon and Chandra had arrived from the Gryffindor table. Ral decided to tune out the conversation; it was only going to make him worry about nothing, anyway. Jace would be back soon.

Even though he knew there was no way Jace would be able to get to the Slytherin dorm room, that night saw Ral tossing and turning, having a frustrating amount of trouble getting to sleep, just in case somehow his friend was able to show up. He didn't want to sleep through that. He wasn't sure when he finally fell asleep, alone, but he was logy and dull the following morning and kept nodding off in History of Magic, which almost made him feel bad, because Professor Granger was a pretty decent teacher.

By day two, when he still wasn't sleeping well, and Jace still hadn't come back to class, Ral was starting to get really irritable. He nearly knocked Nissa over when she accidentally got in his way on the stairs, and Elspeth had to physically restrain him from getting violent when some of the third-year Hufflepuffs came up and jeered at him during dinner. Besides, there were rumors flying around about why Jace still hadn't come back to classes. People were saying that he'd gone crazy, that he was in a coma, or that he was going to be expelled for what he'd done—none of which made any sense, but Ral knew Jace had been getting worse lately. Every time he'd gone to see Professor Potter or one of the other teachers, he'd gotten worse. So keeping him cooped up in the Hospital Wing had to be the worst thing they could have done. Which didn't surprise Ral, because none of the teachers at this stupid wizarding school had a clue how to help Jace. Or maybe they just didn't care.

By day three, he'd decided: he was going to have to break Jace out. If they could make it to a Muggle train station, they could easily make it to London—Ral had a stash of Muggle money that he kept under his bed. His parents kept sending him an allowance, and he didn't have anything he needed to spend it on, especially without access to the internet. It was a good plan. They wouldn't be able to take Elspeth, which was a pity, but Ral knew she'd do okay without them, and they could visit her during the holidays. Jace didn't have any family? No problem—Ral could convince his parents to keep him. He'd convinced them to get him a dog, even though his father was allergic; this couldn't be that much harder.

Of course, in order to rescue Jace, he needed to get into the Hospital Wing somehow, and Ral didn't entirely trust his acting ability. If he went to the prefects and said he was sick, they might believe him, but they might also—not. And none of them liked him very much. Eventually, after spending a few hours wracking his brains, he begrudgingly went in search of some of the other members of the Sleep Club. Two heads were better than one, and—for some reason that Ral refused to think too hard about—his thoughts kept spinning and racing in a way that wasn't exactly conducive to concentrating. The first person he found was Gideon, who wouldn't have been his first choice, but he was starting to get impatient, so after shifting back and forth on his feet for several minutes, he blurted out his question.

Gideon frowned. "If we had a nosebleed nougat, we could probably get you in," he said thoughtfully. "But I don't know how to make a charm for a nosebleed."

"They'll take you to the hospital wing for a bloody nose?" Ral asked sharply. "I mean, the same place they've got Jace and everything?"

"Probably," Gideon said. "The last time Chandra got a bloody nose, she got sent to the hospital wing, just for Madam Pomfrey to look her over."

"Okay, great," Ral replied. "Punch me in the nose. " Gideon stared at him as if he was crazy, which, Ral thought, was honestly just typical. "Everything does not have to be done with magic," he explained as slowly as he could, although he was fidgeting with impatience. "So just punch me in the nose. If you can break it, that might work the best."

"Ral, are you sure—"

"Fuck, _yes_! Jace is stuck in there, and I need to get to him! Just _punch_ me!"

Gideon opened his mouth as if he were about to object, then let out a half-sigh, shrugged, and pulled his fist back. There was a sudden shock of pain, and then Ral was on the floor, gasping, hands over his nose. "Ow, _fuck_ ," he swore. "Fucking bloody _hell_."

"Are you all right?" Gideon asked worriedly. "Are you—"

Ral grinned up at him with blood dripping onto his hands. "Of course I'm not all right," he said. "I definitely need a trip to the hospital wing."

* * *

Draco jolted awake from uneasy sleep to the sound of someone rapping on his door. Groaning, he pulled the pillow over his head. There was a bone-deep ache in his head, drilling into his temples, the same ache that had assaulted him every time he'd woken up for the past week. Migraine, probably. Or maybe just overwork and lack of sleep. His nightmares had been getting more and more frequent lately, and finally he'd retired to bed, pleading illness, just in the hopes that he could get a full day or night of sleep. So far, it hadn't worked. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw roaring flames consuming the Room of Requirement, Dumbledore falling to his death, Hermione screaming under the Cruciatus Curse, Harry—well.

Keeping one hand pressed to his aching head, Draco forced himself out of bed, drew on the set of robes he'd flung over a nearby chair the night before, and shuffled over to the door to open it. He stared vacantly into the distance for a moment before realizing his visitors were shorter than he'd expected and managed to look down. Elspeth Tirel, Chandra Nalaar, and Nissa Revane stood outside, all looking remarkably nervous.

"Professor Malfoy—it's Jace—we're really worried," was all he managed to understand as all three started talking at once. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he held up his other hand.

"Slow down," he said. "One at a time, please." He pointed at Elspeth, who would probably be the most coherent. "Tirel, what is the trouble?"

Elspeth took a deep breath. "Professor, we think that Jace shouldn't be in the hospital wing anymore. We don't think he'll be able to sleep, and that will probably just make it worse. And I'm afraid Ral is going to do something stupid."

"The hospital wing?" Draco echoed. God, he'd certainly missed a few developments over the past several days. Guiltily, he fought against the selfish impulse to send them away and collapse into bed again.

"After Professor Potter found him walking around at night? I know you knew about us swapping rooms, but no one else did, and they got angry, and we're not allowed to—" Elspeth sucked in a sudden sob and looked horrified at herself. "I'm s-sorry," she stammered. "I haven't—been sleeping very well—in my own room."

A sudden hot surge of protective anger pulled Draco's spine into a ramrod straight position as Chandra awkwardly patted Elspeth on the back, and the little girl tried not to cry. He wanted to hold her and tell her that everything would be all right, but he didn't know if she'd welcome that, and he didn't know how to ask, so instead he cleared his throat awkwardly and said, "I'm sorry to hear that, Ms. Tirel. I had asked the other professors not to disturb me, so I'm afraid you'll have to fill me in. Do you think you can do that?"

Elspeth was feeling in her pockets. "I cuh—I can't fuh-find my handkerchief. Do you have—"

"Just use your sleeve," Chandra said. "C'mon, Beth, it's not a big deal."

Elspeth managed a quick, indignant smile. "I'm not going to get snot all over my robes!"

Nissa started digging in her own robes, rather futilely, but Draco cut in first. "Here," he said, hastily proffering his own handkerchief, thankful that it was still clean.

"Thank you," Elspeth sniffed, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose. "All right. I'm fine, thank you, Professor. It all started because Jace found out his nightmares were better when he slept in the Slytherin dorm with Ral—"

"—but not in a bad way, just them sharing a bed—" Chandra put in quickly, and Draco had to quickly turn a surprised laugh into a cough. Now that she had calmed down, Elspeth told her story clearly and concisely, only stumbling a little when she talked about Jace not coming back in the morning. Draco's rage continued to build as she spoke, because hadn't he warned Harry about this? Trying to enforce the damn rules at the expense of their students' health was not what they were supposed to do, and was no one but him paying attention to the first years?

"All right," he said, as gently as he could manage, as Elspeth finished. "Let's go to Madam Pomfrey, and I'll see what I can do."

They were only two corridors away from the hospital wing when they heard the crash.

* * *

Darkness. Something breathing, something crouching over his face, pressing down on his chest. Jace thrashed back to consciousness with a gasp, rolling onto his side and trying to control his trembling as he drew his knees up to his chest. His hands caught in his hair, tightening and tangling, because he needed something to hold onto, needed the pain to anchor himself here, now, instead of in the nightmare.

Dragging painful eyes open, he stared at the clock by the bed and groaned. It had been fifteen minutes since he'd last looked, and it felt like hours. He wasn't getting better. He couldn't sleep—shutting his eyes just brought the nightmares on. Jace pulled the pillow over his head. If he didn't fall asleep soon, Madam Pomfrey would give him another dose of Dreamless Sleep, and he really didn't want to deal with that. The last night, it hadn't stopped the nightmares; it had just stopped him from being able to wake up from them. Which didn't make any sense, but either his nightmares were too bad or there was something wrong with the potion. Or with his head in general.

A sudden explosive rumble from the next room over jolted him upright, and Kallist shot out from under the bed, where he'd been hiding for the past few days, to hover almost protectively over Jace's head. There was another thunderous sound from the adjacent room, and Madam Pomfrey scuttled across the hospital wing, shouted at him to stay put, yanked the door open and dove inside.

A moment or two later, the door opened again, and Ral Zarek slid into the room, shutting the door quietly behind him. He looked around briefly before seeming to see Jace, and then he hurried over.

"Ral!" Jace exclaimed weakly. His friend's face was covered in bright red blood, and there was a bruise blooming around the bridge of his nose. "Are you all right?"

"Huh?" Ral said breathlessly, stopping beside the bed. "Oh, yeah, fine. Come on. We've got to go."

Jace stared at him. "Go?" he asked uncertainly. "Go where?"

"Away," Ral replied. There was a bright, excited light in his eyes that Jace hadn't seen there in several weeks. "I mean, home. I'm gonna take you home. We'll be safe there, okay? You'll be able to sleep and everything."

This was too complicated. Jace was just too happy to see someone other than Madam Pomfrey to really protest. "Okay."

"Great." Ral took his hand, pulling him out of bed. "Come on—who the fuck are _you_?" He was looking at someone behind Jace's shoulder. Kallist spat lightning, and Jace turned, suddenly fearful again, to see grey fog hanging still in the air, and in the center of it, just the hidden suggestion of a hooded figure. His eyes went wide, and he stumbled backward, tripping over the bed in his haste to get away. "Fuck it," Ral said succinctly. "We'll take the window, come on."

"What?" Jace gasped as Ral yanked him back to his feet and began to manhandle him toward the window. Ral paused at the sill, whipping out his wand. " _Alohomora_ ," he said, with a flick of his wrist.

"Do you have your wand?" Ral asked, and Jace looked stupidly down at his hand. Madam Pomfrey kept trying to get him to leave it by his bed, but most of the time he woke up with it beneath his pillow anyway, which seemed to be the case today. He nodded at Ral. "Can you do the levitation charm?" his friend asked, dragging him onto the windowsill.

"Um," said Jace, and Ral flashed him a brilliant smile. "We'll have to do this at the same time. Don't drop me! Okay, three, two, one— _wingardium leviosa_!"

Jace's brain, still fuzzy with sleep and fatigue, barely realized in time what Ral's plan was, but he managed to copy the wand movements and gabble out the spell just as his friend pulled them both off the ledge. There was a moment of giddiness, and then—they were still almost standing next to the window ledge, wands pointed at each other.

"This really should not work," Ral said. "I mean, it's like some kind of stupid perpetual motion machine. Anyway, let's get down." Jace felt himself wobbling in the air as Ral slowly started to turn his wand downward, and he did the same, desperately eager to get away from the cloaked figure, although he couldn't see it anymore. From the faint sound of raised voices, though, they wouldn't have been able to leave through the door anyway.

They got maybe a foot further down when Jace felt his cloak tightening around his throat and choked. "Ral," he managed to get out.

"Shit," Ral said. "I think it's caught on something, but I can't see. You'd better just take it off." Jace froze, his hands at his throat.

"I can't," he managed to get out.

"Jace. Come on. We don't have _time_!" Ral said urgently, and Jace squeezed his eyes shut.

"I can't," he repeated. "Ral, I can't, I'll hurt you, I'll—"

"Jesus Christ, you idiot." A hand batted his own away and undid the fastenings about his throat before he could protest any further, and Jace felt himself jerking toward the ground even as the voices started to rush in.

His feet landed on the ground, and he pitched forward onto his hands and knees. "Come on," Ral said, hand landing on his shoulder—or had he only thought it? Jace couldn't tell; his mind was too full of buzzing half-thoughts tumbling over one another, scraps of images and words and ideas from everyone else around him. Then Jace was on his feet, stumbling along, Ral's hand on his shoulder pushing him onwards.

As the voices receded behind him, Jace became a little more aware of his surroundings. "Where are we going?" he panted as they raced across a bed of dry leaves.

 _For_ —"Forbidden Forest." The thought preceded the words by seconds, giving Jace the unpleasant sensation of a ringing echo.

"Why are we going to the Forbidden Forest?" Jace demanded.

"They won't expect us to go there." Ral waved a hand. "Don't worry, I got bored and looked at some maps a few weeks ago. If we go straight west, it's less than a mile through the forest and then we should get to a town or something."

"How will we know which way is west?"

"Sun."

Doubtfully, Jace looked up at the thick, grey clouds blanketing the sky above them. "Um…"

"We'll figure it out," Ral said impatiently. "C'mon."

Kallist bobbed down from somewhere above them, slotting into his preferred place above Jace's head. Just being out of the hospital wing and moving was enough to clear some of the cobwebs from Jace's brain, and, with an effort, he could suppress Ral's loud thoughts to something more of a murmur at the edge of his awareness. He could do this. They'd figure something out.


	11. Worst Fears

**Chapter Ten: Worst Fears**

 **A/N:** I have been waiting so long to post this chapter. *wicked laughter* Please, enjoy.

There was a thunderstorm in the hospital wing. Miniature, yes, but surprisingly resilient. Despite his assurance to the three first-years that he would help, it turned out that Draco had to help dispel the storm before anything else could be done. No one could hear themselves think otherwise, much less have any kind of reasonable discussion.

It took upward of ten minutes to dissipate the primary core of the enchantment, which was remarkably strong, though quite crude. Almost certainly a student prank, Draco thought irritably, wishing it had been better timed. Finally, though, the large cloud vanished with a popping noise and a wet sploosh, dumping about three inches of water onto the floor.

" _Shit_ ," Draco said before he could stop himself, earning a stern look from Madam Pomfrey. "Poppy, this isn't the time. Where is Mr. Beleren?"

"He's in the other room. What's this about?" Madam Pomfrey asked, and Draco saw her gaze flickering to the two girls behind him, who had been hovering in the doorway for the past ten minutes

"Why wasn't I informed that he had been confined to the hospital wing?" Draco asked bitingly, and received a puzzled look from Madam Pomfrey.

"You were ill—and since when do you need all the specifics about children being sent to the hospital wing?" she asked.

"Hey, kids, let me past," said a new voice from the doorway, and Draco turned to see Harry standing there. "Professor McGonagall said there was a problem—ah, I see you fixed it without me," he said, with an almost casual smile. "Want me to take care of the water?"

"Potter," Draco gritted out. "Surely _you_ could have informed me Jace was ill? Or, at the very least, not try to precipitate further illness on the rest of the students in your charge?"

Harry stared at him blankly. "Er," he said. "What? Jace just had a panic attack and needs to rest for a few days, that's all. What d'you mean about—further illness?"

"It's a miracle none of the rest of the first-years have collapsed yet," Draco said frostily. A small portion of his brain reminded him that now was probably not the time to be having an argument with Harry-bloody-Potter, but a frustration he'd been harboring for weeks now was blossoming to real fruition, and he was having a hard time containing the feelings.

"Why would they collapse?" Harry asked blankly, and that was it, Draco was so tired of this, so tired of trying to explain nicely and be reasonable when half the time Harry didn't even speak to him in the hallways.

"Because they are _fucking traumatized_!" he snapped. "You took a bunch of children with _nightmares_ who _cannot sleep_ and then you took away their only means of support!"

"Hey, mate, what is your problem?"

" _My_ problem?"

"Yeah, Malfoy. What the hell are you yelling at me for? What means of support? What are you even talking about?"

"Merlin, how _can_ you be this obtuse?" Malfoy demanded, even though at this point Madam Pomfrey was staring at both of them as if they'd each grown a second head, and the three children in the doorway were flinching backward. Seeing the fear on Elspeth's face only made Draco angrier. "Those children were sharing beds at night because they have nightmares, which is why _I_ didn't force them back into their beds after curfew because that would be needlessly cruel—"

"You _knew_ they were sneaking out after hours?" Harry interrupted hotly. "You knew that and you didn't stop them? Or tell anyone?"

"THEY WEREN'T HURTING ANYONE!" There was a sudden, sharp hush, and Draco realized that he had one hand on his wand. He took a long, shuddering breath and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. "They—weren't—yes, it was, strictly speaking, against the rules, but—"

"Tell that to Jace Beleren!" snapped Harry. "I told you, I found him having a panic attack on the stairs after hours!"

"What would you know about him?" Draco asked. "You've been ignoring every suggestion I make—"

"Oh, I've been _ignoring_ you now." Harry snorted, and Draco stared at him.

"Yeah, you have, actually."

"Since when were we mates?"

"We're colleagues," Draco responded silkily. "Even if you don't know what that word means."

"Well, excuse me for not knowing what to say to the person whose father I condemned to Azkaban."

Draco stared at him. "How about 'you're welcome.'"

"Huh?"

"I thanked you once already, at the end of the trial, didn't I?"

"Wait, you were _thanking_ me for getting your father— _why_?"

"Because he was an abusive bastard who gave me a lot of fucked up ideas and beat my mum in front of me?" Draco responded coolly. "Not to mention the whole 'supporting Voldemort' thing, which was why he got put away in the first place." Harry's mouth opened but didn't close, gaping like a fish out of water. "Dear god, did you really not know? I certainly told Hermione about it, I'm rather surprised it never got around to you."

"Hermione doesn't—gossip," Harry said shortly, but he seemed to be looking for something to say more than trying to disagree with Draco.

"I did say that not all children trust adults," drawled Draco. "Did you not realize I was speaking from experience?"

"No," Harry replied. "No, I guess I didn't."

"Well, Potter, perhaps if you—"

"Professor Malfoy!" It was Chandra. Elspeth was hanging onto her arm, but making no move to silence her, which, Malfoy guessed, meant that whatever it was, it was serious. He felt faintly ashamed of having gotten drawn into an argument with Potter before settling the trouble around Jace. "Yes, Miss Nalaar?"

"Um, Jace is gone," Chandra said. "The bed's empty."

* * *

They were definitely not lost. Nope. Absolutely not. Okay, so Ral might, possibly, have slightly misplaced the exactly correct direction five minutes after they got into the forest, but they weren't _lost_. Frowning, he looked up at the sky, which remained infuriatingly blank and difficult to see through the waving leaves of the close-knit trees.

Well, if he couldn't navigate by sun—there was always moss, right? Wasn't it supposed to grow on one specific side of a tree? That sounded right. Ral peered at the trees, some of which did have a little moss on them. There wasn't an obvious sort of division, though, and worse—he couldn't remember _which_ side moss tended to grow on, so that wasn't going to be much help.

Ral groaned and squinted at the nearest tree. "Jace, do you remember which side moss grows on?"

"Are we lost already?" Jace asked with a sigh.

"No! Why would you ask that?"

"So we are."

"No, we're not!"

"You know you're trying to lie to a mind-reader, right?" Jace stuck out his tongue, and Ral was relieved that even after a few days in the hospital wing by himself, he was okay enough to joke around.

"Look, I'm not lost. We aren't that far into the forest anyway. We'll get to the other side in no time."

"Okay, Ral." Jace smiled at him wearily, the dark shadows beneath his eyes still pronounced. "I trust you."

That hadn't been what Ral expected him to say, and he had to pause for a moment, swallowing against a sort of nameless feeling building in his throat. "Well, good," he managed finally. "Because I know exactly what I'm doing."

They walked in silence for a few more minutes, before Ral squinted around in some confusion. Was it getting darker? Sunset shouldn't be for another few hours, should it? Above them, Kallist sank lower, the lightning that always flickered through his form dim and oddly hard to see. Jace put a hand up, letting the cloud swirl around it as Ral watched. "Can you feel anything?" Ral asked, with some interest.

"It's cold, mostly," Jace replied. "And sort of—soft? I think he's nervous for some reason right now."

"Does it feel darker to you?"

Jace's head whipped round. "Um," he said, instead of answering. "Is—is that fog?"

Ral followed his pointing finger. Sure enough, thin wisps of something grey seemed to be reaching around the nearby trees like grasping fingers. It was definitely darker. "Come on," he said sharply. "Let's move."

They quickened their pace, dodging between trees and moving off across the woods. A dried riverbed appeared suddenly at their feet, and Ral sat to slide down into it, Jace hovering close behind him. "Ral, wait."

"What?"

Jace pointed a trembling finger down into the bottom of the riverbed. Slowly, white mist was trickling downward, layering across the scattered mix of dead leaves and twigs. "Is—is there someone behind us?" Jace said, and Ral looked up at him to see that he was pale and shaking. "Is there something following us?"

"I don't—" Ral started, and then Kallist flashed brightly, and he realized Jace hadn't been talking to him.

"Leave me," Jace said, suddenly, shoving roughly at Ral's shoulder. "Just get out of here."

"Are you crazy?" Ral snapped. "Come on, we just need to get out of the forest." He reached for Jace's hand, but the other boy shook him off.

"It doesn't want you, it's after me. Ral, please."

"Fuck that!" Ral snarled, picking himself back up. He looked back the way they had come. It didn't look the same, somehow. The trees were darker and more gnarled, yet the sharp points of their branches were softened by the ubiquitous dark mist. Right at the edge, where visibility blurred out, he could just make out the vaguely triangular shape of a person in a long cloak with a hood. "Jace, come on."

"It's not going to leave me alone," Jace said, and hot white anger surged in Ral's chest at the hollowness of his tone. "I thought it might just be in the castle, but it's not. Please, Ral. Just leave."

"Nope," Ral said. Okay, change of plans. They weren't going to be able to make it to the train station today. Carefully, he didn't think about what it would mean if he got expelled and Jace didn't. He'd figure something out. "Kallist, go get help," he said, hoping the cloud would understand him. Kallist flickered again, once, brightly, and then zoomed off upward towards the treetops. Ral briefly considered trying to levitate Jace away, but somehow he thought that would just end with one of them getting brained by a tree branch or something. Besides, it had followed them all the way from the castle and come out of nowhere both times. It didn't seem like they'd be able to get away.

Okay, so running was off the table. Fine. Cool. No problem. Ral took a deep breath and pulled his wand out of his robes. Time to fight instead. Fog boiled up around the strange hooded figure. "Fuck off!" Ral shouted warningly, shoving Jace roughly behind him. His friend whimpered, but at least he was no longer telling Ral to leave him. The figure didn't retreat; instead, it began to move forward again, slowly, steadily, in eerie silence. Nails digging into the palm of his hand, Ral raised his wand, not really sure until he spoke what spell he was going to try. " _Fulgur maxima_!"

The words ripped themselves from his throat, and he felt the hairs on the back of his arms and neck go up; the dry air around him crackled, and he had the sensation of the air itself coming apart around him. It felt as if he were screaming, the sensation ringing in his head, but the only noise was the whoosh-crack of sudden thunder as the bolt of lightning sprang into being and danced across the clearing.

It seemed to burn away the fog as it moved in a jerky, joyful dance, and Ral saw the creature clearly for the first time as the bolt struck it full in the chest. The short, blue-cloaked figure staggered back slightly, clutching at the wand in its hand, and Ral had a moment of pure horror, his head whipping from the boy crouching behind him to the boy standing in front of him. As the hood fell back, the thing that _could not be Jace_ raised its wand. " _Avada Kedavra_ ," Ral heard, and there was a brilliant flash of green light.


	12. Covenant of Minds

**Chapter Eleven: Covenant of Minds**

 **A/N:** Due to the prevalence of cliffhangers in this part of the story, I'm trying to post pretty quickly, hence why this chapter is up so fast.

"What?" Harry and Draco both said at the same moment, staring from each other to the children and back. Almost in sync, they turned and headed for the next room, argument temporarily forgotten.

Not only was Jace's bed empty, but the sheets had been flung hastily to the floor, and they were stained with a few telltale droplets of blood. Harry stared unhappily. "Where could he possibly—"

"Look!" Elspeth rushed across the room to the open window and leaned out. A moment later, she was leaning back in, clutching something blue in her hands. "It's—it's his cloak," she said. "Jace wouldn't have left it—he was too scared to take it off." She looked up at Draco, her face drawn and pale. "What happened to him?"

"Don't panic," Harry said immediately, though his stomach was turning over, because—was this his fault? Was Draco right? He obviously hadn't been doing nearly as good a job as he thought of taking care of other people lately. "We'll find him."

The sound of the door banging open had them all looking up again. Hermione rushed into the room in a cloud of hair and feathers, waving a letter. "I need both of you right now," she said breathlessly.

"Hermione, now is not the best time," Draco hedged.

"You need to listen to this," she said, then paused, biting her lip. "Ms. Nalaar, Ms. Tirel, Ms. Revane, perhaps you'd better—"

"We're not going anywhere until we find Jace!" Chandra interrupted angrily, and Elspeth nodded, standing her ground. Nissa blanched for a moment and then her chin firmed up, and she nodded as well.

Hermione looked worriedly from the three of them to Draco, who nodded. "Mr. Beleren is missing from his bed," he said, and Harry caught himself wondering when he'd gotten so estranged from Hermione that she looked to Malfoy before she looked to him.

"Oh—oh dear," Hermione continued weakly. "I've just had an owl from Professor Slughorn. He—he wanted to know if we'd done the boggart lesson yet."

"The what?" Harry replied. "Hermione, we don't have time for—what is he even talking about? We don't even have a—have—" A bloody great empty cabinet sitting in the middle of Slughorn's study. Malfoy, retiring to his bedroom, sick with nightmares. Jace Beleren, having the worst panic attack Harry'd ever seen, on the central stairway of the castle in the middle of the night. "Oh damn," he breathed.

"It was a boggart, Harry," Hermione said, her hands twisting in the letter. "That's what should have been in the cabinet. And it's been out for _ages_. He says it's a really old one, too. Really strong. It's been _feeding_."

Harry stared at her, having trouble processing what she was saying. They'd dealt with boggarts before; it had never been anything that bad before. _But you always knew what it was before_. Unbidden, a memory of Mrs. Weasley rose up, standing in 9 Grimmauld Place, crying, in front of a cabinet as she desperately chanted "Riddikulus" over and over again. And she had known that what she was seeing wasn't real.

As Harry, Hermione, and Malfoy all looked at one another, wondering what their next move was, something bright and amorphous zipped in the open window and made a beeline for Elspeth.

"Kallist?" she said worriedly. "What's wrong?"

* * *

Ral's head was aching, and his vision, as he opened his eyes, was blurry. He could barely make out Jace's small figure, standing at his feet, wand outstretched. Jace was speaking to something Ral couldn't see, and there was dark liquid streaming down his friend's face from his nose and eyes.

"I—I know why you're here," Jace sobbed. "I know I was supposed to die back then. That's why nobody's ever wanted me, isn't it? Because Death came and I didn't die and it was a mistake. I'm sorry. I don't remember what I did. Just—please—leave Ral alone."

Ral tried to say something along the lines of "what the fuck" but all that came out was a strangled groan. He could feel his wand clutched in his hand, but he couldn't seem to move the hand to raise it, or even open the fingers to let it go. As he tried to force himself to move, he saw Jace take a step back. "Look, just—just _tell_ me, okay? You know what I did, don't you? You—you're me. Please. I should know."

Silence. _Come on_ , Ral told himself. _All you have to do is move. You're good at moving_. _And it's basically the only job you have right now._ His body did not appear to believe his encouragement, as it continued to lie uncomfortably still on the muddy ground. "Goddammit," Ral tried to say, but again, nothing coherent came out. Jace glanced down at him, bit his lip, and looked down and back up at whatever he was talking to. "Fine," he said. "I don't know what you want, but I guess I just need to try—harder."

 _Jace, what are you doing?_ Words, Ral needed words. _Don't do anything stupid._ A faint blue glow started at the edge of Jace's pupils and around the tip of his wand. _I said_ don't _, you moron!_ Ral's hand clenched, but that was definitely too little, too late, as the pupils of Jace's eyes expanded outward, the blue glow washing through everything, swallowing up the irises and then the sclera, until there was nothing but azure light. Ral felt a sudden chill as Jace's face seemed to go slack, mouth dropping open slightly. Every muscle in his body seemed to loosen except his wand arm, and he slumped over sideways, as if he were being held up by a string attached to the top of his shoulder and nothing else.

Ral's stomach turned over, and sickly-sweetness washed into his mouth before he vomited, but his body was still too heavy to move, and he started to choke. Oh god. He was going to choke and die on his own goddamn vomit. A hand from somewhere behind and above him reached down and turned his face to the side, so he could see even less, but at least now there were fingers in his mouth, clearing the vomit out, so he was technically capable of breathing again.

There was a long pause, during which all Ral could hear was his own gasping breaths, and then a soft hand dropped into his shoulder. "I am sorry," Jace's voice said, but the cadence was off—broken and rough, as if Jace were putting on a bad robot imitation. "I have harmed you. I should not have."

Jace's hands were on his shoulders, trying to help him sit up, but Ral still couldn't control his own limbs, and he basically just flopped over back into the mud again. "I am sorry," Jace's voice said again, and now there was a hint of emotion in the voice, but it was still clumsy, as if whoever it was wasn't used to communicating this way. "I should not have done this."

Ral's wand hand twitched slightly, almost the first movement he'd been able to deliberately perform since he woke up, other than making strangled gargling noises. That was probably a good sign. Jace's hands slipped beneath his back and pushed him upright again, this time staying in position to keep him up. He'd been turned around slightly, and now he could see the figure Jace had been speaking to. Though it wore a blue cloak and had dark hair and eyes, it was more like a blurred watercolor picture of Jace than Jace himself. "I do not think I should leave you here," said Jace's body. "But I do not think you can stand. This may be difficult. I am sorry if I—hurt you." The strange pause he made sounded as if it was searching for the word.

Jace's body put his shoulder beneath Ral's and stood up. Ral tried to help, but he couldn't manage to do much other than shift his feet ineffectually beneath him. Jace's body grunted slightly with effort, but he didn't speak again. He just turned in the direction that Ral thought they had come from and began walking. Fog lapped at their ankles, and Ral wondered if the mock Jace figure was following them.

They had been walking for only a moment or two when they heard cracking noises coming from in front of them as if somebody else—or numerous somebody elses—were walking toward them through the forest. Voices floated to Ral's ears, though they were oddly muddy and hard to pick out, even at what was probably a relatively short distance.

The first thing he saw was movement at the edge of the thick fog, and then a piece of it seemed to break off and coming streaming toward them, flickering lights playing through it. Jace's body stopped and stared. _Kallist_ , Ral tried to say, but, of course, all that came out was a thick groan. Figures loomed up out of the mist, and then Elspeth pelted into the clearing, closely followed by Chandra and Nissa. "Ral! Jace!" she gasped. "Are you all right?"

"Ms. Tirel!" Professor Granger's voice. "Slow down!"

"There's a boggart out here somewhere and—" Chandra broke off as she and Nissa raised their wands uncertainly. "Elspeth, look."

Professors Granger, Malfoy, and Potter burst into the clearing at top speed and all three raised their wands, then paused as they saw Jace and Ral and the floating figure behind them. "Girls, get back," Professor Potter bit out. " _Riddikulus_!"

There was a sharp crack from behind the two of them, and Jace's body, next to Ral, cried out, a high squealing noise like an animal in pain. He dropped to the ground, and Ral, unable to stand by himself, pitched forward as well. Slamming into the ground when you couldn't stop yourself hurt, Ral discovered, especially when you still hadn't managed to get your possibly-broken nose treated. Tears of pain sprang to his eyes.

"Wait!" It was Professor Granger. "Jace isn't wearing his cloak—Harry, Merlin's sake, hold on!" Hands on Ral's back again, turning him over. He decided he was thoroughly tired of being unable to move. "You three, get back!" Professor Granger again. Elspeth and Nissa might listen, Ral supposed, but he didn't think Chandra would listen any more than he would have. In fact, to his surprise, it was Nissa who got him turned over and propped up, while Elspeth and Chandra knelt by Jace.

"Can you hear me? What's wrong?" Elspeth asked. Jace's blank blue eyes turned toward her, and Ral felt his stomach turn over at the strange tilt of his head.

"I am sorry," Jace's body said, in the same inhuman voice it had been using earlier. "I have hurt them. I am sorry."

"Professor?" Elspeth called uncertainly. "There's something wrong with Jace."

"I think Ral's all right," Nissa put in.

 _I can't even fucking move!_ Ral tried to protest.

"I mean, I think he's just stunned?" she clarified.

" _Rennervate!_ " came Professor Malfoy's voice, and Ral's arm finally decided to do what he'd been trying to get it to do for five minutes now, but he overcompensated and smacked Nissa in the ear as he gasped and curled forward into a proper sitting position.

The three professors moved forward, wands outstretched, and Ral instinctively put himself in front of Jace.

"Mr. Zarek, are you all right?" Professor Granger asked, and Ral nodded a little shakily. "You're covered in blood."

"I'm fine," Ral replied warily. He knew that he and Jace needed help, but at the same time, he didn't want the professors to take Jace back to the hospital wing and make him get even more scared than he'd been so far. "I don't know what happened. That—" he gestured to the blurry Jace-figure over his shoulder. "I think it hit me with the killing curse, only I'm not dead. And then Jace went into its head or something and now he's—"

"It's a boggart," Professor Granger said soothingly. Ral did not feel soothed. "It couldn't hit you with a real killing curse because it isn't a wizard, but it must be very strong to have stunned you."

"Jace used legilimency on it?" Professor Malfoy put in sharply, and Ral nodded slightly.

"I will free him," Jace's body said in a stilted voice from behind Ral, and then Jace's own voice burst out weakly. "No, _stop_ , don't leave, they'll kill you!"

"Jace!" Ral whirled around to see that his friend was standing half bent over, trembling with effort, wand arm now out and pointed to the figure behind him. The bright blank blue in his eyes flickered rapidly on and off.

"Mr. Beleren—" Professor Granger said, and Elspeth and Chandra both hovered as if they wanted to touch him but didn't quite know if they should, while Professor Potter held his wand grimly pointed at the blurry figure in the mist. Professor Malfoy put a hand on Professor Granger's shoulder and stepped forward.

"Let me, Hermione," he said seriously. "I think he trusts me. Ral, do you mind letting me talk to Jace?"

" _Don't_ hurt him," Ral said, stepping aside slightly.

Professor Malfoy knelt in front of Jace. "Jace," he said softly. "Do you need help?" The shivering head inclined in something that might have been a nod. "All right. What do you need help with?"

" _Let me_ —please don't kill—" The not-Jace voice and the Jace voice were spilling over each other at this point. "D-Don't kill it."

"Do you mean the boggart?"

"Boggarts are amortal creatures, Jace, we were only going to banish it," Professor Granger put in from behind him.

"No!" Jace said, his free hand balling into a fist in his robe. "No—I can't remember them. It needs to be able to remember them. Please."

"If we tell you that we will not attack or banish it, will you stop using legilimency?" Professor Malfoy asked. "I'm afraid you're hurting yourself, Jace."

"I need it to understand," Jace said fiercely. His voice was growing stronger. "It's not human. _We were hurt and angry and that's why we hurt people_." Ral felt himself shudder as Jace's voice suddenly rasped into a weird hybrid of his normal tones and the odd, robot-like voice he had been using earlier. " _They took the children. We don't want to forget the children._ " Jace's wand fell to the ground as he put both hands to his head. There were fresh bloody tears leaking from the corners of his eyes, trickling down to mingle with the sticky blood that had already collected beneath his nose and on his chin. He took a deep, gasping breath, and then the blue faded, and he was crumpling forward.

Ral caught him before he hit the ground and staggered beneath his weight, his still-sore muscles protesting the strain, but he managed to get Jace down slowly and looked pleadingly at the professors. "He's going to be fine," he said, stubbornly, and then Jace's eyes were fluttering. The blurred figure in the fog behind him shimmered from blue to indistinct grey, but did not dissipate, hovering in a way that almost mirrored Kallist's concerned swoops.

"I didn't kill anyone," Jace whispered, smiling.

"Huh?" Ral asked.

"It helped me get back my memories. I didn't hurt anyone," Jace said softly. "I didn't know until now."

"We need to get him back to the castle," Professor Granger said.

"Jace," said Professor Malfoy. "May I pick you up?"

"Okay," Jace said, still smiling. He seemed dazed and unfocused, and either couldn't move or wasn't trying.

"Shouldn't we put him on a stretcher?" Professor Granger asked doubtfully, but Professor Malfoy was already carefully lifting Jace, hands beneath his shoulders and knees.

"I've got him," he said quietly. "Come on."

Elspeth, Nissa, and Chandra trailed after Ral, but after he nearly snapped Chandra's head off when she asked him if he was all right, they stopped trying to talk to him. Elspeth put a hand on his shoulder, and he decided not to shake it off. She probably needed to touch someone right now.

Jace's eyes were shut again, and he seemed to be dozing, as the party of teachers and children headed for the school grounds. Kallist hovered a few feet over Ral's head, and the boggart floated behind them, indistinct in its cloud of fog, its form rippling slightly at the edges, sometimes taking on aspects of almost human shape.

"Ral," Jace said faintly after a few minutes, and Ral shook off Elspeth's hand and hurried over to him.

"What?" he said. "You should probably shut up and rest until they get you back to somewhere safe."

Jace's eyes slid open, and he blinked as if he were very sleepy. When he responded, it was as if he hadn't heard what Ral had said. "I guess really what I always wanted was just—not to die alone. When I was little and everybody's thoughts were buzzing in my head, but they were all dead—I'd felt them all die—and I was alone—I just didn't want to die then. Because I'd be alone." Jace reached out with a trembling hand and slipped his hand into Ral's. "I don't care so much if I'm with…" He seemed to be searching for the word, but couldn't find it. Instead, he pulled Ral closer until he could nestle his head against his friend's shoulder the way he did sometimes in the middle of the night.

"Shut the fuck up, no one is dying," Ral said irritably. He squeezed Jace's hand roughly, but didn't let go, and the soft haze seemed to clear a little from his friend's eyes.

"Okay, yeah, not dying would be better," he agreed with a shaky laugh. "Not dying is definitely better than dying."

"Stop talking, you two," said Professor Granger. "We'll be back to the castle any minute now."

"Yeah," said Ral. "See? Shut up or you'll get me a detention again."

"Sorry," Jace whispered. He was still smiling that vague, happy smile as his eyes slid closed again.


	13. Awakening

**Chapter Twelve: Awakening**

Hermione tiptoed into the hospital wing, looking around for Poppy. No immediate sign of her, but Harry was leaning on the wall inside the door. He put a finger to his lips when he saw her and nodded across the room.

Jace Beleren, looking very thin and pale, lay in one of the Hospital Wing beds, fingers curled loosely around the top of his covers. Elspeth Tirel, Chandra Nalaar, and Nissa Revane were piled in a heap on the next bed over, curled together into a little heap. Ral Zarek lay with his arm flung out across the base of Jace's bed.

"They all fell asleep pretty quickly," Harry said softly. "Poor kids. I really fucked this whole thing up, didn't I?"

"How's Jace?" Hermioned asked, and Harry sighed.

"Poppy says she thinks he should wake up in a day or two, but he really burned himself out, and she doesn't know for sure because she's never seen anyone use legilimency the way he did. The kids are all a bit—broken up about it." Harry stared down at the floor. "Fuck," he mumbled again. "I wanted to protect them all. From me. From everything."

"I know," Hermioned murmured. "So did I."

"D'you find anything out about the boggart?"

She shivered. Coaxing it to come with her had been surprisingly easy—whatever Jace had done inside the creature's mind had rendered it quite able to understand her, though it no longer seemed capable of speech. It had taken some thought to come up with a way to communicate, but eventually she had settled on trying to use a pensieve to view its memories, reasoning that if legilimency worked on it, an artifact that was partially based in legilimency might as well. And she'd been right. It had worked.

"Yes," she said, and then, needing the physical reassurance, she leaned sideways against Harry, who put an arm around her shoulder and rested his chin on the top of her head. "Quite a lot about both the boggart and about our little telepath."

She'd seen an old, ramshackle house, dark and forbidding, rising above the windswept heath that stretched in every direction. It was one of those well-known "haunted" houses that children would flock to for a scream and a laugh. Muggle children and an old amortal being who fed on their fear and discovered that he could abide their laughter, at least when it was born of adrenaline and enjoyment rather than mockery. Three children in particular drew its attention—Hermione thought they might be siblings, but from the murmured conversation the boggart could recall, all she knew for certain was that they were foster children living in the same home. Lavinia, Asha, and Jared. They spent long hours in the boggart's house, avoiding—well, avoiding something. They didn't talk about that much.

Jared was the one who first realized that the boggart existed, that it was something more than the ubiquitous and terrifying creaks and cracks that all old houses evince. He played hide and seek with it for a week before letting Asha and Lavinia know about it. All three of them left it presents, just little things—a candy bar, a bowl of milk, a cheap, bouncy rubber ball. It popped out from behind doors and from the tops of cabinets, feeding on their shrieking laughter and sometimes the bits of food they left.

Then, one day, they didn't come back. Of course, when it went back through its blurred memories, it knew it had memories of children who didn't come back. But Asha, Lavinia, and Jared had always come back, so they always should come back. And thinking that, it went to search for the three of them.

It found ash and embers. Hermione didn't know if some mundane disaster had befallen the village, or if—and she thought this was more likely—it had been a casualty in the crossfire of the Wizarding War, but either way, the little Muggle settlement at the edge of the moors was quite gone.

After that, the memories in the pensieve had become blurry, but Hermione thought the boggart had wandered for some time before being captured by Professor Slughorn. And it had been—hurting. Jace was right about that. It had been hurting and in pain, and it had lashed out. "It lost its—family, and then Professor Slughorn caught it and stuffed it in a cabinet," Hermione said quietly to Harry, and she was glad that his answer was just to squeeze her closer to him. She rested her head against him for a moment, glad for the physical reassurance. It had been a long few days.

"What about Jace?" he asked, after a few more minutes had passed.

Hermione put a hand to her aching head. The boggart had ripped the memories from the child's subconscious, filtering through them instinctually to find his worst fears. She knew it was sorry now—sorry for hurting him—but it _had_ hurt him. She thought it had understood why she was asking about his memories, though, and it had tried to show her. The memories themselves, even filtered through the distorted lens of the boggart's strange mind, had been heartbreaking and horrifying to view. "Did you tell him it was dangerous to take off his cloak?" she asked, not sure if that moment had been real or imagined.

"Huh?" said Harry. "Oh—er—yeah. Professor Sinistra told me he'd had a bad reaction to taking it off, so I thought—"

"He thought you meant that _he_ was dangerous."

Harry ran his hand through his hair tiredly. "Merlin, I'm bad at this."

"Well, you aren't the only one." Hermione sighed and twirled her hair with her fingers. "I think there may be quite a lot of things we need to rethink for the current crop of students. Draco's certainly proven that he's done better with Jace than either of us, so maybe he'll have some insight." She paused, chewing her lip, before continuing. "He watched a lot of people die when he was very young." It had been hard to tell from the impartial, third-person eye of the pensieve, but the bright blue glow in the young Jace's eyes suggested to Hermione that he hadn't had much of a mental filter at the time. "He might have done more than watched," she admitted finally.

Harry gave her a strange look. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"He wasn't wearing his cloak," Hermione said sharply. "Actually, I don't believe it even existed yet. I wasn't one of the wizards who helped charm it, but I think Professor McGonagall might have been involved. They made it quite soon after the war."

Harry's eyes flashed brilliant green, face shadowed with an emotion she couldn't identify. "Huh," was all he said.

"I'd like to talk to you and Draco about another idea I've had," Hermione continued finally. "I think—I think we might be able to find Jace's mother."

* * *

Warmth surrounded Jace, and, for once, his return to consciousness didn't follow a sharp jerk from nightmare to darkness. He felt—safe. One hand was especially warm, while the other was a bit cooler and damper. "Kallist?" he mumbled, dragging heavy eyes open.

The first thing he noticed was that it was quiet. Someone had tucked his cloak around his shoulders, which was nice. He finally knew he hadn't hurt anyone, but it helped him avoid a headache if he could wake up alone in his head. The second thing he noticed was that Kallist was, in fact, hovering lightly over his hand. "You got us help, Kallist," he smiled. "Thanks."

He tried to sit up and realized he couldn't. His left hand was trapped, and he blinked sleepily, trying to figure out why. Kallist rose with a cheerful flash of light, and Jace's eyes slipped over to the other figure on the bed. Ral Zarek was sprawled on his front halfway down it, and he had Jace's hand tucked underneath his cheek and was hanging onto it with both hands. He was also snoring gently.

Jace tried to work his hand free, but it wasn't as effective as he'd hoped. Pulling his hand up didn't extricate it from Ral's, it just brought Ral's hands with it, and his friend blinked his eyes open. "Sorry," Jace said. "I didn't mean to wake y—" He never managed to finish before Ral was vaulting up the bed and throwing his arms around Jace.

"You _ass_!" he shouted in Jace's ear. "How long were you planning on sleeping?"

"I don't know, how long was I asleep?"

"More than a day. Everyone else went to class and stuff." Ral sounded vaguely miffed.

"You skipped class?" Jace echoed slowly.

"Yeah, well, I wanted to make sure you were going to wake up, and having someone you know around is supposed to help if someone's in a coma, right? I mean, you weren't really in a coma or anything, but, uh…" Ral trailed off, running a hand through his spiky dark hair and staring determinedly at a spot above Jace's left shoulder.

Jace grinned at him. "I didn't expect you to worry so much."

"I wasn't worried!" Kallist flickered brightly at Ral's shoulder.

"I think Kallist is saying you're lying."

"Yeah, well, fuck you," Ral said irritably. "I thought you were going to die or go crazy or—look, I wasn't worried, I was just—" he sighed sharply. "I just wanted you to be okay."

"Right," said Jace. "Of course. That's why you tried to electrocute a—something—for me." The memories were filtering back slowly, as if he was watching them through an old, very unreliable pensieve. "Ral—it hit you with a Killing Curse—are you—"

"I'm fine." Ral rolled his eyes. "Boggarts aren't real wizards. It just stunned me. And then _you_ decided to go all crazy telepath on me and let it eat your brain or something."

"That's not what happened!" Jace protested, then paused. "Um, I don't think. I don't remember most of it, actually."

Ral sighed dramatically. "Of course you don't. You read a boggart's mind, Jace. Do you remember that?"

"I—remember…" Jace trailed off. "I remember _remembering_. I remember not hurting anybody. They all—" he swallowed hard. "When I was a little kid, someone attacked us. Death-eaters, I think. Everyone who was there died in my head, and I was really panicked so I think I read the attackers' minds, too, but then I guess I tried to get all of those thoughts out, and it sort of worked? But I still had some of their thoughts left in bits, and I didn't know if I'd—done something. If those thoughts were actually _mine_. The memories of killing people."

Ral ruffled his hair. "You're a moron," he said. "You were five years old. Everybody but you knew you hadn't done anything wrong."

"The teachers—"

"They're idiots, too. They don't count." Ral hugged him ferociously again. "If I have to fight the teachers, I will."

The arms around him were trembling slightly. "I'm really okay," Jace said. "I promise. I feel fine. I didn't even have nightmares last night." He rested his head on Ral's shoulder, wondering if his friend would pull away, because it was probably a little bit weird, maybe, but Ral didn't. Instead he just put one hand awkwardly on Jace's back and held him.

The sound of someone clearing their throat made Jace look up, and Ral pulled away immediately. Professor Malfoy, looking quite tired, was standing by Jace's bed. "I'm glad to see you're awake, Jace," he said. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Are you going to expel us?" Ral blurted out. "No one's told me anything."

The professor held up a hand. "Neither of you is in trouble," he said. "Well. Professor Granger is probably going to give you a long talking-to, but you are not going to be punished. I have pointed out to my colleagues that they—perhaps unwittingly—put you both into a very difficult situation."

"I—think I'm okay, thank you," Jace said, managing a smile. A thought pricked at him, thrown up from the confused blur that was his last set of waking memories. "Is the boggart all right? You didn't—" He couldn't finish the sentence.

"Your fear monster is fine," Professor Malfoy said dryly. "It has been communicating with Professor Granger, and we have been negotiating with it in an attempt to find it a home."

"So—the children—" Jace wasn't sure where the phrase came from, but he knew that they shouldn't be forgotten.

"The children will not be forgotten," Professor Malfoy said, gently. "Thanks to you, we're also learning a great deal about amortals that we didn't know before. The boggart is much more capable of communicating now than it was before you—" he paused, as if searching for the words, "—shared its mind."

The phrase made Jace's stomach turn over, because it connected to a host of confusing, blurred, and blended memories that he was pretty sure he didn't want to deal with right now. Not for a while. Definitely not all at once. He reached out and grabbed for Ral's hand and squeezed it, then, almost instinctive and a little defiant, twitched his cloak off. "D'you mind?" he asked Ral.

"Huh? No."

"Thanks," Jace said firmly, and let the already well-known connection rise between the two of them. Ral's mind, bright and sparking, welcomed his, and he felt the sensation of his hand in Ral's reflected back at him. Ral was angry and tired and confused and relieved, all at once, but his mind was similar to Jace's—it didn't burn with strangeness the way that the boggart's had. Even the mess of emotions was almost soothing.

"I'm glad to see you're both feeling better," Professor Malfoy said, and Jace was suddenly incredibly thankful that the professor hadn't even commented on Jace's removal of the cloak. "Do you think you will be capable of dining in the Great Hall tonight, if Madam Pomfrey allows it?"

"I feel fine," Ral shrugged.

"I'm—I'm actually pretty hungry," Jace said, a little surprised at himself. For some time now, he'd been fighting to eat at meals, because there always seemed to be a leaden, sick weight in the middle of his stomach. But now, it was gone, and he really was hungry.

"Good," said Professor Malfoy briskly. "No doubt you won't be expected at lessons again for a few days, so I'll leave you two to rest." Frantic, angry bursts of light. "Excuse me. I'll leave you _three_ to rest." He smiled faintly at Kallist, and lightning rippled almost smugly through the little cloud. "Congratulations, by the way, Mr. Zarek," he said, as he turned to go. "I have never heard of a student successfully solidifying an amortal before, though no doubt it's happened."

With that, he turned and left. Jace was treated to the rare event of a moment of stunned silence from Ral Zarek.


	14. End Hostilities

**Chapter Thirteen: End Hostilities**

Draco smiled to himself as he shut the door to the hospital wing. He was glad to see that Jace and Ral were doing well—it was a definite weight off his mind. He wasn't about to admit it, but he'd spent most of the past twenty-four hours dozing in or around the hospital wing to keep an eye on both of them.

"Malfoy—um—Draco." He turned in surprise to see Harry hovering behind him, shifting nervously from foot to foot. They stared awkwardly at one another for a long minute before Harry said, "So."

"So." The awkwardness was palpable, but the fact that Harry felt just as awkward as he did was at least somewhat comforting.

"I think I might, er, owe you an apology." Harry shuffled his feet and rubbed a hand through his hair. "Don't think I've been totally fair to you, Malf—Draco."

Rubbing at his chin, Draco tried to figure out what to say. "You know that Hermione and I never—"

"Yeah," Harry broke in. "That wasn't it. That was never—" he passed a hand over his face. "Okay, that's not exactly true. Ron was pretty upset, so I suppose I wondered for a bit. But 'Mione said nothing happened, and I believed her." He sighed. "Ron fucked up. That's not the point. The point is that I didn't know how to talk to you, so I just—didn't. Ron's not the only one who's fucked up recently."

"Well, apology accepted, I suppose," Draco replied. "I am still grateful to you for all you did during the war, Potter—" he paused, letting the word turn over in his mouth, "—Harry."

Harry huffed and sighed, then laughed ruefully. "You're welcome," he said, putting out a hand. "Shake?"

Though his lips twisted slightly to the side, Draco nodded after only a fraction's hesitation and took the proffered hand. For one fleeting moment, they were connected, the solid warm pressure on Draco's hand oddly comforting. He let go, feeling abruptly trapped with Harry between him and the rest of the castle. And yet, as Harry started to turn away, it was Draco who called him back. "Harry," he said. "What about the first-years?"

Harry sighed sharply, his shoulders bunching up with tension. "I should've just left Jace to you. Or 'Mione. Someone with more experience."

"That's your problem, Potter. That right there." He hadn't intended to say anything like this, especially not right now, not when he would probably destroy the vulnerable, nascent cord of understanding that had sprung up between them, but he was so very tired of no one saying it.

"What?" Harry gawped at him with the stupidest expression Draco thought he had ever seen.

"Merlin, you really don't get it, do you? You keep pulling back. You keep assuming you are _the_ most broken, that you shouldn't _inflict_ yourself on the rest of us. News flash, Harry! We're all broken! My father hit my mother in front of me and force-fed me a litany of pureblood supremacy it's taken years to unlearn, and I'm one of the lucky ones. I've woken Hermione Granger from nightmares of the Cruciatus curse. And those children—do you realize that Jace Beleren felt over twenty people _die_ in his head? At the age of five? I looked up the incident—there were only two survivors. I know you know what that feels like, Harry—and that's my point. We all know. You're not going to hurt us with your fractured edges, we've all dealt with one or another kind of horrifying war fallout. The children need to know they're not alone."

There was a long moment of silence, and then, to Draco's surprise, Harry laughed. It was a half laugh, almost forced, but it was still, definitely, a laugh. "That's certainly one way to give a pep talk," Harry said, running his hand through his messy hair awkwardly. "I never thought about it like that."

"That's because you refuse to listen to your friends," snapped Draco. "Hermione's been saying this for years."

"Hermione's too nice about things sometimes," Harry said, the corner of his mouth curving down slightly so that his lips cut a lopsided gash across his face. "I think I needed a slap upside the head over this one." He paused, eyes flickering upward as if he were mulling something over, and then he said, "Thanks."

Draco, caught by surprise, didn't know what to say for a moment, and then the words rose to his lips. "You're welcome, Harry." Smirking slightly, he held out a hand. "Shake?"

* * *

It felt strange to be back in the Great Hall for dinner. Jace's first steps in were hesitant and dragging, not because he didn't want to be here, but just because everything felt ever-so-slightly _off_. Oh, and what felt like every single student looked up when he walked in. That was kind of intimidating as well. He shrank back instinctively, fingers catching in the hem of his cloak. Ral put hands on hips and took half a step forward in front of him.

"Jace! Ral!" Something hit them at approximately the speed of sound, and they both went over backwards. Elspeth was either crying or laughing, Jace wasn't sure, but she had an arm around both of them, and she was pulling them close. Jace had to laugh as well, and for a moment, the three of them curled together on the floor of the great hall in one giant snuggle pile. Then a pair of feet appeared in the edge of his vision. Nissa bent down over them, her long plait swinging down over one shoulder. "I'm glad you're both okay," she said in a small voice. As Elspeth helped Jace sit up, Nissa put out a timid hand to Ral. He stared at her, then took it stiffly, and let her help him up.

"Eat with us?" Nissa said, staring downward at her feet and pointing toward the Hufflepuff table.

"I always do," snorted Ral, but he gave her a sort of bemused half-smile. Jace decided there was absolutely no reason he had to let go of either Elspeth's hand or Ral's, so he didn't, even when Ral absentmindedly tried to take his hand back. Instead he dragged them both over to the Hufflepuff table and pulled them down beside him. He'd slept, he wasn't a murderer, and he was actually hungry. He deserved to be surrounded by friends right now.

After a few minutes, the quiet attention that the students had focused on him ebbed a little, and he, Elspeth, and Ral fell into a conversation that was mostly Ral complaining about the lack of mobile phones, which meant he couldn't get on the internet, which meant that of _course_ he'd gotten lost when they were in the Forbidden Forest. Jace listened amusedly and didn't point out that, for all they knew, the geography of the forest shifted around magically anyway.

When Elspeth had finished her food, and Ral was almost done with his, Jace was starting to suspect that he was being conned. He still had at least half a plate left, and he was pretty sure he'd eaten a full plate already, though he had to admit he didn't feel full yet. Finally, after five minutes more had passed and he was watching his plate out of the corner of his eye, he caught Ral sneaking a scoop of mashed potatoes onto it. Jace turned and pouted at him. "You could just tell me to eat more."

Ral went red to his ears. "I don't care how much you eat," he said immediately.

"You're literally sneaking more food onto my plate while you're saying that."

"W-Well, you're skinny!" Ral dropped his spoon and stared up at Kallist, who had followed them to dinner for once. "I don't like you bashing me with your boney elbows in the middle of the night!"

On his other side, Elspeth burst into giggles and dropped her spoon. "It wasn't just him," she said. "Sorry, Jace, you _are_ skinny."

A lump rose into Jace's throat, but it wasn't a bad kind of lump. He sniffed and rubbed a hand across his eyes. "Jace?" Elspeth asked uncertainly, as two fat teardrops rolled over and plopped into the mashed potatoes.

"You don't have to eat it!" Ral said, in a voice that sounded so suddenly panicked that Jace stuffed a hand to his mouth as he started to laugh at the same time. "I thought you liked mashed potatoes!"

"No—it's not that," Jace managed. "I just—thank you. Both of you. I never had friends like you before. I really, really—"

He was interrupted by the strong tone of a fork hitting one of the metal cups, and he looked up, blinking away the tears, to see that Professor McGonagall was standing up and calling for everyone's attention. "Thank you," she said, as the noise of student conversations gradually died down. "I know that many of you have been concerned over the events of the past weeks or months. And I'm sure you've all realized by now that our missing first-years have returned safely. In the aftermath of recent events, I have a few points to award, as there has not been an opportunity to do so until now." She cleared her throat, and the room waited expectantly. "First, Mr. Jura, ten points to Gryffindor for unorthodox help to a friend."

Gideon stood amid the applause of the room, and Ral laughed, leaning back in his chair. "He sure packs a mean punch." He wriggled his nose at Gideon, who grinned back, a little abashed.

Professor McGonagall waited until the cheering had died down, and then continued. "Ms. Nalaar, Ms. Tirel, Ms. Revane. Twenty points each to Gryffindor and Hufflepuff for quick thinking under pressure." Jace cheered as the three of them stood up as well. Elspeth dipped her head nervously downward, and he reached out and squeezed her hand. She shot him a sudden smile, like sun breaking through clouds, and her chin firmed as she turned her face back up.

"Mr. Beleren." Jace blinked up in shock, Ral's hand on his back prodding him upright. But he hadn't done anything. He'd just—needed to be rescued. "Thirty points to Hufflepuff for outstanding courage." Jace shook his head, the roaring in his ears louder than the cheer that swelled around him. He wasn't brave, it was—it was _Ral_ who was brave, and it was Ral who should be standing up here now. He looked down at his friend, whose face was—oddly blank, though he was applauding. Ral's face shouldn't be blank. Jace opened his mouth to say something, but Professor McGonagall was speaking again. "And, Mr. Zarek," Ral's head whipped up, jaw dropping, even as Jace felt a grin spreading across his own face, "fifty points to Slytherin for incredible loyalty in a most difficult position."

There was a heartbeat of silence, and then all of Slytherin surged to its feet at once with a roar that was practically loud enough to bring down the roof. Ral got dazedly to his feet as Jace and Elspeth slapped him on the back, and no matter how much he was going to say later that he didn't care, right now Jace could see the expression of sudden joy flash into his eyes.

Professor McGonagall smiled at them, then nodded to Professor Granger, who rose to her feet, waiting until the noise had died down to speak. "Students, we have something else to say. A week ago, Professor McGonagall told you that we were going to take great care that no one was leaving their dormitory after hours. That was a mistake." She gave them a worried smile. "None of the professors were in possession of all of the facts at that time. I hadn't realized that many of you were deliberately changing your sleeping locations to help yourselves be able to sleep." She looked down for a moment, then back up.

"The Wizarding War took a toll on all of us," she said, to Jace's surprise. "None of you are alone in your nightmares. Not just your peers but your professors—all of us know what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night screaming. You were wise enough to ask each other for help, and we weren't wise enough to let you know that you could ask us for help as well. We're sorry— _I'm_ sorry." For a moment, she was looking directly at Jace. "From now on, we'll try to help you sleep however we can. And I hope you'll consider coming to me or one of the other professors if you need help with something." She sat down with a thump, a little out of breath, more flustered than Jace was used to seeing her.

Again, there was a moment of silence, and then Elspeth started clapping. The sound of her hands was small and lonely, and then Jace exchanged glances with Ral, and the two of them began to clap as well. A waterfall of applause surged through the Great Hall, and Professor Granger smiled widely from underneath her frizzy mane of hair.

Jace stared around at the friends around him, and then, yielding to an impulse he hadn't realized he was having until he was already acting on it, he undid the clasp on the front of his cloak and let it slip to the ground. The roar of voices closed over his head, but he pulled out the thread of Ral's easily, and from there, it wasn't so hard to find Elspeth's, Chandra's, Nissa's, Gideon's—and all the rest of the Sleep Club. _Thank you,_ Jace whispered into their minds as the sound of cheering swelled around him.


	15. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Kallist hovered nervously in the front of the classroom as Jace made encouraging noises and tried not to let his cloud see that he was nervous, too, at having to stand up in front of all of the first-years while Professor Potter lectured on amortals. He was pretty sure Ral already knew, though. His friend had poked him three times already, and Jace wondered if it was because Ral was trying to figure out if he was doing all right, or if he was trying to distract him from his nerves.

Ral, of course, was only too happy to spend ten minutes in front of the class explaining exactly how he'd created Kallist. He'd hopped onto the professor's desk and was talking and gesturing excitedly with his wand. "Thank you, Mr. Zarek," Professor Potter cut in. "To bring all of this together, we used to think that amortals were essentially spirits or energies bound together with magic, and banishing them would unbind those energies, but that they'd eventually pull themselves back together. All of that still appears to be true, but thanks to Mr. Beleren's recent, er, adventures, we've been able to refine our understanding. The energies that create a particular amortal _will_ generally reconstitute themselves after that amortal has been banished, but their memories will be lost. All right, I'd like you to give me twelve inches on the amortal of your choice by next week. Class dismissed."

Jace found that his legs were trembling slightly. He let out a breath—and Kallist, who'd been doing a fantastic job this whole time, flickered and dumped a bucket's worth of water onto his head. Sputtering, Jace pushed his wet hair back out of his face, and turned to glare at Ral, who was laughing at him.

"Jace?" It was Professor Granger's voice. Jace turned quickly.

"Sorry," he said. "Kallist kind of gets nervous sometimes."

"Oh, that's fine," Professor Granger said distractedly. "Jace, you have a visitor."

He blinked at her. "What?"

Professor Granger was playing with her sleeve nervously. "Someone who—I think you'd like to see."

"Um, all right." Why was she so nervous? Her anxiety was contagious, and Jace felt himself shuffling back and forth. "Can Ral come, too?" He knew that was stupid, but something about her expression made him feel as if his world was about to rock on its axis, and Jace had had more than enough of dealing with world-changing events by himself.

Pause. "Yes, I don't see why not. Ral?"

"Okay." Ral sounded doubtful as well, and a little defensive. "Sure."

"Thanks," Jace murmured to him as they followed Professor Granger toward her study.

"It's no big deal," Ral said, with a shrug, but Jace thought he caught a quick smile at the corner of Ral's mouth.

There was a woman standing in Professor Granger's study, looking out the window, her white hair bound into a single simple plait at the back of her neck. She turned as they entered, and Jace put a hand to his head. There was something so—oddly familiar about her, but he couldn't figure out what it was.

"Jace?" she said softly. "Hermione, he won't recognize me—you shouldn't have—"

Her voice echoed, resounding, in Jace's head. _Stay there, Jace. Be quiet. Don't come out_. But the hair was wrong, and he'd felt her—"Ranna?"

A hand went to her mouth. "You—you do recognize me?" she said faintly.

"But you're dead," Jace said uneasily. "I felt—I felt you—" His voice was shaking. She wasn't a ghost, but Ranna wouldn't have left him, would she? All he remembered about her were fleeting images, a sense of safety, and—pain. Her voice screaming in his head.

"I thought you were dead," Ranna replied quietly. "The Death-eaters tortured me, Jace." She put a hand to her white hair. "See?"

"But you didn't die," Jace said slowly. "But then—but you must have known I was alive!" Pain rose in his throat. He hadn't even known who Ranna was, all he knew was that he'd trusted her more than anyone in the world.

Apart from a slight shiver, Ranna remained motionless at the other end of the room. "The Ministry decided it would be best if I lived as a Muggle," she said. "I was not informed that you were alive. Since the alternative was prosecution, and since I didn't really have much magic left anyway, I complied."

"Prosecution?" Jace echoed.

Ranna's eyes flickered to Professor Granger. "You haven't told him?"

Professor Granger looked at the floor. "I didn't know until recently," she said calmly. "And then I didn't want to tell him, because I didn't want to get his hopes up that we could really find you."

"I see." Ranna took two steps forward and then knelt to look Jace directly in the eyes. "Leading up to the Wizarding War, there were certain elements of the Ministry who believed that Harry Potter wouldn't be able to defeat Voldemort, so a number of other measures were attempted. I led one of the teams. We were trying to see if we could raise a child with a talent similar to Harry's connection to He-Who—Voldemort."

"And that was me."

Ranna nodded, a short little jerk of her head. "Yes."

"Then you're not—"

"I'm not your mother, Jace. I'm sorry."

Rubbing a hand across his eyes, Jace sniffed. "Then I'm just an experiment."

"Hey!" Ral put in. "You are not _just_ anything, you idiot! Besides, experiments are cool!"

Jace had to laugh at that, and he was feeling slightly better by the time he turned back to Ranna. "You say you're not my mum, but I—remember—" Her voice. Her arms. Her warmth. "I remember you being my mum," was the best way he could put it.

Ranna gave him a sudden smile. "I tried. We shouldn't have been doing what we were doing, Jace. We were all very scared. But I did want you to have a normal childhood—I was trying to let you have that. But I never meant for you to think of me as—"

Jace's lips were trembling, even though he was trying to make them stop. "Well. You fucked that up," he said finally, then remembered that Professor Granger was here, and he'd probably get in trouble.

"What?" Ranna asked.

"I do. I did. I cried myself to sleep wanting you. I just." Jace sniffed again. "I don't care why, I just, I want my mum. I—" He wasn't supposed to be getting upset, but to his horror, there were tears overflowing down his face, and Ral put an awkward hand on his head. "Please? Don't you want me?"

"Oh, Merlin," Ranna said, and then he was in her arms, and he was sobbing, and so was she. "Yes, of course I want you, I thought they'd killed you, my little boy, I thought you wouldn't—"

Her words devolved into incoherence. Jace rested his head on her shoulder, and Kallist swooped down, spitting lightning. "Kallist! It's okay. This—this is—she's my mum," he sniffed.

"Oh!" Ranna exclaimed. "What—hello, little friend."

"This is Kallist, he's my, um, my pet, I guess." Jace waved a hand to Ral. "And this is my best friend."

There was a moment of startled silence. "Oh, yeah," Ral said, just a heartbeat too late for nonchalance. "Yeah, I'm Jace's, I'm Ral. Nice to meet you, Ranna."

"And later you can meet Elspeth and Nissa and Chandra and Gideon!" Jace exclaimed, suddenly realizing the possibilities. "And I can show you my classrooms! And everything! If—if you want to see it?"

Ranna nodded, stroking his hair back from his forehead. "I want you to show me everything about you, Jace."

 _ **A/N:** Thank you all for reading! This story was a blast to write, and it was really fun to watch people's reactions as it unfolded. FYI: there IS a sequel in the works, but it's still in pretty early stages, so it might take quite some time to get it polished enough to start posting._


End file.
